Adam Smercina

Adam Smercina joined the institute as a NASA Hubble Fellow in 2024. Originally from Northwest Ohio, near the shore of Lake Erie, Dr. Smercina earned his bachelor's degree in Physics from the University of Toledo in 2015. He then moved to the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, where he was supported by an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship and earned his PhD in 2020. He then headed west to the University of Washington, where he was a postdoctoral scholar for four years, working with the Panchromatic Hubble Andromeda Treasury team, before joining the institute in 2024. Dr. Smercina has been regularly awarded time to observe with Hubble, Webb, and competitive ground-based facilities such as the Subaru telescope in Hawaii and ALMA in Chile. He is passionate about mentorship, and has worked with a number of graduate and undergraduate students in his career. His research focuses primarily on reconstructing the evolutionary histories of galaxies by resolving them into their constituent stars, gas, and dust. His work touches on a broad range of topics, including archaeology of local galaxies, galaxy merger histories from stellar halos, low-mass galaxy formation and small-scale cosmology, and the physics and evolution of the interstellar medium.

Education:

PhD in Astronomy & Astrophysics, University of Michigan
MS in Astronomy & Astrophysics, University of Michigan
BS in Physics (Astrophysics), University of Toledo

Science Interests:

• Resolved Stellar Populations and Galaxy Archaeology
• Star Formation Histories
• Galaxy Merger Histories Inferred from Resolved Stellar Halos
• Satellite Galaxies and Small-Scale Cosmology
• Quenching of Star Formation
• Evolution of the ISM in Galaxy Mergers.

Research Topics: Star Formation, Histories, and Evolution; Local Group Galaxies; Galaxy Formation and Evolution; Interstellar Medium, Dust, Star Clusters; Resolved Stellar Populations

Professional Websites:

Professional Website

ORCID ID: 0000-0003-2599-7524