Ivanna Escala

Dr. Ivanna Escala joined Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) as a postdoctoral scholar in 2024. At the Institute, Dr. Escala is part of the ISM* group and has joined the HST-based Scylla collaboration and Roman Infrared Nearby Galaxies (RINGS) collaboration, working primarily with Dr. Kristen McQuinn. Her recent research focuses on star formation histories of the Magellanic Clouds and resolved stellar kinematics and chemical abundance measurements of dwarf galaxies in the Local Group. Broadly, Dr. Escala is interested in the relationship between galaxy merger history and the formation and evolution of stellar disks and halos, as well as the associated impact on surviving and destroyed satellite dwarf galaxy populations, within the Local Volume. 

Before joining the institute, Dr. Escala was a Carnegie-Princeton Fellow at the Observatories of the Carnegie Institution for Science and Princeton University. She obtained her PhD in Astrophysics from the California Institute of Technology in 2020, where she was a Fellow of the Ford Foundation and National Science Foundation and a France A. Cordova Tombrello Scholar. Her doctoral research focused on leading the chemical abundance analysis of a large ground-based spectroscopic survey of resolved stellar populations in the stellar halo of the Andromeda (M31) galaxy.

Education:

PhD in Astrophysics, California Institute of Technology
MS in Astrophysics, California Institute of Technology
BS in Physics with Specialization in Astrophysics, University of California, San Diego

Research Topics: Star Formation, Histories, and Evolution; Local Group Galaxies; Galaxy Formation and Evolution; Resolved Stellar Populations; Astrochemistry; Chemical Abundances

Professional Websites:

Professional Website

ORCID ID: 0000-0002-9933-9551