As new space-based observatories like the James Webb Space Telescope peer more deeply into our Universe than ever before, our community is challenged to develop a theoretical and modeling framework to characterize and study what will be humanity's greatest astronomical discoveries.
My research addresses this need by generating detailed simulations. By calculating all the processes that photons undergo as they travel across the Universe from the surface of a distant star to a telescope’s detector, my collaborators and I have been able to disentangle perplexing trends in observed galaxues as well as make predictions for what we might unveil in the near future.
Topics we have investigated in prior work include massive black hole formation, the first stars and galaxies, and the intricate interplay between nebular emission lines and the escape fraction of ionizing radiation. Looking forward, I propose to create the largest and most detailed database of synthetic observational tools and predictions at a time that will come to define astronomy for generations.
Lean more about Professor Kirk Barrow here on the Astronomy website: https://astro.illinois.edu/directory/profile/kbarrow