Almost every massive galaxy hosts a central supermassive black hole (BH), but their origins remain unknown. Characterizing the population of intermediate-mass BHs residing in dwarf galaxies provides important constraints on the formation pathways and properties of the first generation of BHs, called BH “seeds.” One way to identify dwarf galaxy BHs is to search for infrared (IR) signatures of active galactic nuclei (AGNs), however applying existing WISE color selection diagnostics in the dwarf regime has revealed significant contamination by starbursts. Despite starbursts being a well-known contaminant, the properties driving that contamination  remain debated. Previous theoretical work demonstrated that extremely young starbursts that exhibit ongoing star formation and reside in gas-rich environments are the dominant source of contamination. Conversely, observational studies found that this contamination appears to be predominately older, instantaneous starbursts in dusty, low-metallicity environments typical of dwarfs. To better understand the physical drivers of this contamination, we created a suite of dwarf galaxy starburst models to understand how different physical properties affect the observed WISE colors. We will use our models to create multi-wavelength color cuts to minimize starburst contamination in future IR dwarf galaxy AGN surveys, providing stronger constraints on the total population of dwarf galaxy BHs and thus our understanding of the origins of supermassive BHs.

My capstone research, “Cosmic Archeology: Examining the Structure of Galaxies Over Cosmic Time,” utilized JWST NIRCam near-infrared imaging from the COSMOS-Web treasury survey to examine the evolution of galaxy morphology at intermediate to high redshifts. 

I performed multi-wavelength Sérsic profile fitting of the sources using Galfit and GalfitM; extracting morphological parameters including Sérsic indices, axis ratios, position angles, and flux radii. Additionally, I utilized MegaMorph’s GALAPAGOS2 to establish the framework for automating and parallelizing this fitting process on a high-performance computing cluster. This framework will facilitate the efficient analysis of large galaxy samples and contribute to a scalable pipeline for future morphological studies.

During two projects, "Calculating the Gas Fraction of Galaxy Mergers at Cosmic Noon" (2021) and "Galaxy Mergers at Cosmic Noon: Collisions That Birthed a Billion Stars" (2022), I investigated the Interstellar Medium content of merging galaxies at Cosmic Noon using ALMA submillimeter data. Across two summer research fellowships, I analyzed over 1,000 galaxies in the CANDELS and COSMOS fields, performing aperture photometry and estimating ISM masses to explore how elevated merger rates may have influenced star formation and black hole growth during this epoch. These efforts resulted in catalogs of galaxy cutouts, photometric measurements, and estimated gas fractions.