I am a joint Research Fellow at the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR), University of Western Australia (UWA) and the Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics (RSAA), Australian National University (ANU).
My research focuses on improving our knowledge of how galaxies, and their constituent parts (e.g., stars, gas, dust), evolve from the early Universe into the diverse population that exists today. In particular, I am interested in improving our understanding of how interstellar dust impacts observations of galaxies and also expanding various aspects of the spectral modeling code MAGPHYS. I am co-PI of the UVESS (Ultraviolet Extinction Sky Survey) SmallSat mission concept. I am actively involved with several large galaxy surveys:
TYPHOON, a large program of 44 nearby galaxies (z~0) using the 2.5m du Pont Telescope
MAGPI, a large program of ~200 galaxies at intermediate distances (z~0.3; 3-4 billion years ago) using the MUSE instrument on the Very Large Telescope
PASSAGE, a large pure parallel program of very distant galaxies (z>1; >8 billion years ago) using the NIRISS instrument on the James Webb Space Telescope
POPPIES, a large pure parallel program of very distant galaxies (z>3; >11 billion years ago) using the NIRCam instrument on the James Webb Space Telescope
CLUTCH, a multi-cycle treasury program of intermediate and very distant galaxies with the Hubble Space Telescope
I am also co-Principal Investigator of the UV spectroscopic SmallSat mission concept called UVESS.
Latest:
-Awarded 123 orbits (co-PI) on the Hubble Space Telescope for imaging pure parallel fields in the PASSAGE and OutThere surveys. (Jul 2025)
-Recently accepted Research Note on avoiding 'catastrophic failures' in photometric redshift fitting (Battisti et al. 2025b). This was featured on the StarXiv podcast (at 22:30-31:00). (Jul 2025)
-I gave an invited seminar on the UVESS SmallSat mission concept. The recording can be viewed here. (May 2025)
-The High Level Science Product (HLSP) update for the WFC3 Infrared Spectroscopic Parallel (WISP) survey (a large Hubble space telescope program) is live through the MAST archive (link). For details, see Battisti et al. (2024). (Jan 2025)
-Awarded 32 hours (PI) on the Very Large Telescope to study dust attenuation in the OutThere survey. (Dec 2024)
-Recent paper on the link between the 2175Å UV absorption feature and small dust grains (Battisti et al. 2025a).
-I volunteered at AstroFest in Perth, WA. (Nov 2024)
-Awarded 30.9 hours (PI) on the Very Large Telescope to study dust attenuation in the PASSAGE survey. (July 2024)
-I gave an invited colloquium on my research at UWA/ICRAR. The recording can be viewed here. (Dec 2023)
andrew.battisti -shift 2- uwa.edu.au
or
andrew.battisti -shift 2- anu.edu.au
NGC2841 Image credit: Hubble, Subaru; Composition & Copyright: Roberto Colombari. APOD link