Sabrina Stierwalt
    research

My expertise lies in conducting multi-wavelength surveys to study the cosmological assembly history of galaxies. I use high resolution views of nearby galaxies to understand the physical processes by which gas is converted into stars, as well as how the effectiveness of those processes might vary over cosmic time. I have a proven track record for obtaining highly competitive observing time, including as a PI of successful ALMA proposals in all four cycles to date and as a PI of large CSO, VLA, GBT, and VLBA programs (>280 hours total).

See below to learn more about a few of these projects.

I am currently leading the first systematic observational study of star formation and the subsequent processing of the interstellar medium in interactions and mergers between low mass, dwarf galaxies, the survey TiNy Titans (TNT).

I was PI of two ALMA proposals in Cycles 0 and 1 and of a 2014 VLBA program to observe the most compact off-nuclear starburst known in the nearby universe. The last of this data was just delivered in December 2015 so stay tuned!

As a probe of how stars formed when the universe was young, I am involved in a project to study the efficiency of star formation in nearby, extremely metal-poor dwarf galaxies where we can predict their molecular gas content using maps of their dust.

I am PI of ALMA Cycle 2 and 3 projects to trace the imprints of shocks left behind on the gas and dust in massive galaxy mergers by tracing molecular species like SiO and methane. The first of this data was just delivered in January 2016 so stay tuned!

As a graduate student at Cornell, I was heavily involved in the blind, HI survey ALFALFA. My thesis work focused on nearby galaxy groups and looking for the so-called missing satellite dwarf galaxies via their neutral gas content.

Since my days as a postdoctoral associate at Caltech, I have been an active member of the Great Observatories All-Sky LIRG Survey (GOALS), a major effort to understand the physical processes govering the dust, star formation, and gas dynamics in nearby LIRGs (luminous infrared galaxies).