Guinevere Kauffmann
Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics
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Primary Section: 32, Applied Mathematical Sciences Secondary Section: 12, Astronomy Membership Type:
Member
(elected 2012)
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Research Interests
The focus of Guinevere Kauffmann's research has been to establish a connection between theoretical models of structure formation in the Universe and the properties of the luminous galaxies that we observe. Kauffmann's research group focuses on the development of a theoretical framework to model the formation and evolution of galaxies within a merging hierarchy of dark matter halos and to compare the results of the models to modern-day observations. She has made extensive use of spectroscopic data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey to derive key constraints on models by studying the stellar masses, star formation rates and metallicities of a million nearby galaxies, as well as accretion onto their central supermassive black holes. Recently, Kauffmann has focused on studying atomic and molecular gas in nearby galaxies. To achieve this, she has led three large observational programs at the Arecibo, IRAM and Westerbork Synthesis radio telescopes.
