Dr. Michelle Cluver
My research is primarily focused on the physics (e.g. tidal torques, stripping) and chemistry (star formation -- bursts and quenching) of galaxies that live in groups, compact or otherwise. Since most galaxies in the local universe reside in a group (or did before they became assimilated into a cluster), understanding the evolutionary pathways that dominate in this environment can help inform models aimed at disentangling galaxy evolution as a whole. The Taipan Galaxy Survey (http://taipan-survey.org), combined with sensitive neutral gas observations, is expected to revolutionise our understanding of the role of environment in the transformation of galaxies from disky, star-forming systems to bulge-dominated, relatively quiescent systems.
Because interacting galaxies tend to be dusty, I rely heavily on mid-infrared tracers of stellar mass and star formation in the local universe for my research. At higher redshift, multi-band photometry providing full spectral energy distribution information (from surveys such as GAMA and WAVES) allow us to probe these effects closer to when star formation in the universe was at its peak.
| Phone | +61 3 9214 3484 | |
| Office | AR313 | |
| Personal Webpage | https://astronomy.swin.edu.au/~mcluver/ |