Julia Roman-Duval

I am Julia Roman-Duval, an Associate Astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, MD. I am French born, but have lived in the USA for over a decade. I currently live in Columbia MD with my husband Miguel Roman and our three children. Other than being fans of science and astronomy, we are a very outdoorsy adventurous family. I have a "second job" as an elite distance runner.

I spend half of my work time doing research on the interstellar medium (ISM) of the Milky Way and nearby galaxies. My long term goal is to observationally characterize the physical processes that govern the structure and composition of the different phases of the ISM. Currently, my two main areas of research are to 1) study the variations of the dust abundance and properties with global (e.g., metallicity, Hubble type) and local (density, radiation field, local dynamics) environment; and 2) quantify the distribution and structure of diffuse and dense molecular gas in nearby galaxies and the relation between ISM structure and star formation.

The other half of my work time is spent supporting the Cosmic Origin Spectrograph (COS) onboard the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). I have been leading "lifetime position moves" for COS. COS/FUV lifetime position moves consist in moving science spectra to new pristine locations on the COS/FUV detectors every 2-3 years to mitigate the effects of gain-sag, which is a kind of charge/gain depletion progressing with normal usage of the instrument. Every time we move spectra to a new detector location, we have to commission COS again and redo all the calibration, so it is a big effort.