Profile
Mario is an instrument scientist for JWST/NIRCam, where he is the deputy lead for operations. His broad areas of scientific interest are stellar evolution and resolved stellar populations. The question that mostly puzzles him these days is: What is the outcome of the star formation process, in terms of stellar mass distribution? (Rephrased: what is the stellar Initial Mass Function?). He tries to answer this by using data (mostly HST, soon JWST, and later the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope) on nearby stellar clusters (in the Galaxy and the Magellanic Clouds), Galactic populations (the Bulge), and extra-galactic resolved populations (SMC, LMC, Ultra-faint dwarf Milky Way Satellites). He has a soft spot for advanced statistical tools and machine learning.
Mario is also involved in building new instrumentation (SAMOS, a Digital-Micromirror-Device-based multi-object spectrograph to be soon mounted at the SOAR telescope). He is the PI of a laboratory effort to characterize digital micromirror devices for use in multi-object spectroscopy, with focus on future UV space observatories.
Science Interests:
- The initial mass function in nearby systems
- Star formation histories of nearby galaxies
- Dynamical evolution of young star clusters
- Testing stellar models using pre-main sequence binaries
- Developing instrumentation based on new technologies (DMD-based multi-object spectrograph)
Research Topics: Resolved Stellar Populations, Stellar Evolution, Bayesian Analysis, Instrumentation
Professional Websites:
Pre-footer
To contact one of our research staff members
please call 410-338-4700 or view the index for their email alias