Research profile Prof. dr. S.C. (Scott) Trager

Description of research:

I'm a Professor at the Kapteyn Astronomical Institute at the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen.

My research focuses on understanding the formation and evolution of the most massive galaxies in the Universe: elliptical and lenticular early-type galaxies. Recent work includes:

• the next-generation stellar spectral library for stellar population modeling: XSL

• determination of the slope of the initial mass function in early-type galaxies using stellar population analysis and gravitational lensing

• the neutral and molecular gas content of star-forming galaxies back
  to z=3.0

• the deepest-ever color-magnitude diagram of M32, the compact elliptical companion of M31 (the Andromeda Galaxy) and the first determination of its star-formation history from resolved stars, as well as studies of its ancient metal-poor variable star population

• models of the chemical enrichment and star-formation histories of early-type galaxies

• the stellar populations of early-type galaxies seen in the near-infrared

• the neutral gas properties of nearby early-type galaxies

I also help design and build front-line astronomical instruments.
I'm the Deputy PI, Dutch PI, and Project Scientist for WEAVE, a massively-multiplexed spectrographic survey facility for the WHT at the ING on La Palma in the Spanish Canary Islands.

Keywords: galaxy evolution, spectroscopy, stars, instrumentation

Websites:
Employee (corporate homepage): http://www.rug.nl/staff/s.c.trager/
Personal webpage: http://www.astro.rug.nl/~sctrager/Scott_Trager__Galaxy_Evolution.html