Sandanuwan Prasadh - Outreach

Public Presentation of the PhD defense:

Articles published about my Research Studies.

In a Galaxy Far Far AwayWorking at a cosmological scale—“huge” doesn’t begin to cover it—when University of North Dakota physics major Haylee Archer peers deep into the universe. Archer, from Finley N.D., is part of a UND team that recently searched for distant dwarf galaxies using the Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona. Booking time on that scientific instrument and any other big telescope is seriously competitive. The four-student team — Archer; Gregory Foote, Los Angeles; Madina Sultanova, St. Cloud, Minn.; and Sandanuwan Kalawila, from Sri Lanka — is working with UND’s Wayne Barkhouse, associate professor in the Department of Physics & Astrophysics, part of the UND College of Arts & Sciences. Barkhouse, originally from one of Canada’s Maritime provinces, studies galaxy clusters, extragalactic globular clusters and is an associate member of the international Dark Energy Survey. He’s also a member of the Large Scale Structure LSST Science Collaboration. Like Barkhouse, who enjoyed stargazing in his home region because there wasn’t much light pollution, Archer says living on a farm in rural North Dakota encouraged her love of the night sky. “So I’ve wanted to study space since I was very young,” said Archer. “I want to know as much as I can about everything related to the stars and to the universe, which is why I’m majoring in physics, with an emphasis on astrophysics.” Focus on details Archer, who expects to graduate in May 2017, got the astrophysics bug early when she came to UND. “I took a course in introductory astronomy from Dr. Barkhouse when I was a freshman,” she said. “I reached out to him when I was in his course and I’ve been working with Dr. Barkhouse since then. I’ve been researching galaxies, especially dwarf galaxies, which is among Dr. Barkhouse’s interests. When he applied for time at the Kitt Peak National Observatory for his dwarf galaxy research project, he asked if I would be interested in working on the team.” Barkhouse says he occasionally runs into students such as Archer, who’re willing to tackle the exceptionally challenging work of becoming scientists. “I recognized that Haylee was a serious student, and she has proven able to handle complex research, including the data gathering and analysis, both of which require a discipline focus on details,” says Barkhouse. Archer aims to build a career in academic research — she plans to go on to a Ph.D. program in astrophysics. Logging light years So

Presentation to UND aerospace symposiium - 2018

Article Published on Alumini magazine of University of North Dakota. - 2016

Exploring Star Formation in Cluster GalaxiesWe describe our survey to map the star formation activity in cluster galaxies. A sample of galaxy clusters is observed using the KPNO 4m telescope. Redshifted H-alpha emission is observed using the narrow-band BATC filters. The continuum-subtracted H-alpha images allow us to constrain the star formation rate by measuring H-alpha luminosity. The impact of the cluster environment can be quantified using radial-dependent measures of the star formation rate. This will allow us to understand the mechanism responsible for the enhancement or quenching of star formation.

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