David Law

David is an Associate Astronomer at STScI.  He obtained his PhD in astrophysics from Caltech and was previously a Hubble Fellow at UCLA and a Dunlap Fellow at the University of Toronto.  His research focuses on the evolution of galaxy structure and kinematics from the Local Group to high redshift, with particular emphasis on optical/IR spectroscopic studies of turbulence and gas outflows in star forming galaxies.  He is the lead data scientist for the SDSS-IV MaNGA project, which is obtaining integral-field spectroscopy for 10,000 nearby galaxies.  David is a member of the JWST MIRI instrument team, where he leads the development of the MRS integral field spectrograph.

Science Interests:

• Morphology and kinematics of galaxies from young universe to z=0
• Gas flows and spectral emission lines
• Tidal streams in the Local Group and evolution of dwarf galaxies
• UV/optical/IR spectroscopy, integral field spectroscopy, adaptive optics
• Software algorithms and data pipelines
• Numerical simulations

Research Topics: Galaxy Formation, Galaxy Kinematics, Galaxy Evolution, Milky Way, High-Redshift Galaxies, Local Group, IFU Spectroscopy, Globular Clusters

Professional Websites:

Professional Website