P. (Pratika) Dayal, Prof

Short Biography:

Pratika Dayal is Rosalind Franklin Fellow at the Kapteyn Astronomical
Institute of the Faculty of Science and Engineering.

Her doctoral research focused on modelling galaxies in the first billion years to put robust constraints on the end stages of reionization, and unveil their physical properties (masses/dust content). She has significantly expanded her research expertise since then. During a postdoc at the Leibniz Institute (Potsdam), collaborating with experts working on the local Universe, she started a new line of theoretical research showing that these early galaxies could be the smallest progenitors of galaxies like our own Milky Way. During her postdoc in Edinburgh, she assisted observational groups (both in Edinburgh and at Rome) in writing theoretically-underpinned proposals, obtaining coveted observational time on international telescopes including ALMA, HST and KMOS, and provided the basis for interpreting data from the Hubble Ultra Deep Field 2012 Campaign. At this time, she also started working on explaining the scaling relations observed for local galaxies. During her fellowship in Durham she built consistent models to study galaxy formation in Warm Dark Matter scenarios. She also opened up new lines of Astrobiological research ranging from modelling the habitability of the Milky Way to that of the entire Universe over 13 billion years.

She is now leading reionization calculations for the forthcoming era of 21cm cosmology with the next-generation instruments such as the Square Kilometre Array.

Academic Career

Education

Doctorate in Astrophysics, SISSA, Trieste, Italy (Advisor: Prof. Andrea Ferrara, 2006 - 2010) Thesis Title: Cosmic Lighthouses - unveiling the nature of high-redshift galaxies

Honours:

• Invited visiting professor, La Sapienza University of Rome (2019)
• Elected as member of the International Astronomical Union (since 12 June, 2018)
• VIDI research grant (Innovation Scheme NWO, 2018)
• Affiliate lecturer, Institute of Space Sciences, University of Malta (since Sep 2016)
• ERC Starting Grant (European Science Council, 2016)
• Addison Wheeler Fellowship (Durham University, 2015)
• Associate researcher at the Scuola Normale Superiore (Italy, since Oct 2011)

International Academic Activities

• Chair of Astronomy program committee, Lorentz Centre (2018-to date)
• Panelist for ESO observing program committee (2017-2018)
• Astronomy program committee member, Lorentz Centre (2017-2018)
• Member of program committee, Isaac Newton Group of telescopes (2017-2018)
• Member of National Science Agenda (Route 5) writing group (2017-to date)
• Referee for NASA and UK Royal Astronomical Society astronomy grants (2017-to date)
• Referee for Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Astronomy & Astrophysics and Astrophysical Journal

Leadership in  international collaborations for future facilities:

• Co-leader for SKA Phase-1 Epoch of Reionization Synergy Group & core SKA member (since Nov 2015)
• Lead/coordinator for the High-z galaxies aspect of BlackGEM (since July 2018)
• Member of the EUCLID collaboration (since February 2017)
• Core-member proposing the THIEA mission for ESA (2015)

Successful proposals on international facilities

• Co-I on Spitzer proposal to look for IR emission from high-redshift galaxies (24 hours)
• Co-I on Hubble Space Telescope proposal to look for reionization sources at z=7 (16 HST orbits)
• Co-I on Hubble Space Telescope proposal for properties of brightest z=7 galaxies (16 HST orbits)
• Co-I on ALMA proposal to survey Hubble Ultra Deep Field (20 hours)
• Co-I on Very Large Telescope (KMOS) proposal to study z=7 galaxies (3 nights)
• Co-applicant on the HPC-Europa2 Transnational Access visit programme for Ms. Hutter (8 weeks)

International Recognition

Invited seminars/colloquia at international institutes:

• 10 invited reviews at international conferences/workshops
• 20 invited talks at international conferences/workshops
• 40 invited seminars/colloquia at international institutes
• 42 contributed talks at various conferences/workshops/schools.

A selection of my recent presentations:

• 2019: University College London (U.K.)
• 2019 Lines in Large scale structure, Marseille, France, 8 July (invited conference talk)
• 2019: Inter-departmental colloquium, Heidelberg (Germany)
• 2018: LSS2LSS workshop, Institut d'astrophysics Spatiale (Orsay) (invited review)
• 2018 : Institute for cosmology and Gravitation (ICG), Portsmouth University (U.K.)
• 2018: Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tokyo (Japan)
• 2018: Institute of the Physics and Maths of the Universe (IPMU), Tokyo (Japan)
• 2018: Observatory of Marseille (France)
• 2018: Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics, Potsdam (Germany)
• 2018: Strasbourg Observatory (France)
• 2018: EWASS2018 symposium on galaxy symposium (mini review)
• 2018: MIAAP workshop on the interstellar medium, Munich, Germany (invited talk)

Science Outreach

• Lecture to FMF student association, Groningen (2018)
• Lecturer for National Stargazing day, Groningen (2018)
• Talk on Dark Matter at the DOT, Groningen (2018)
• Founding member and chair of outreach committee, Young Academy of Groningen (2016-2017)
• Outreach lecturer at the Science open Day, Groningen (2016)
• Outreach lecturer at the University of Malta, Valletta (2016)
• Demonstrator for "Dutch national stargazing day", Groningen (2016)
• Institute of Physics (IoP) year of light exhibition, Durham (2015)
• Public lecture for Sunderland Astronomical Society, Durham (2015)
• STFC roadshow “Seeing the Universe in all its light”, Edinburgh (2014)
• Winter outreach series lecturer, Edinburgh (2013 & 2014)
• Open day organization, Edinburgh University (2011 - 2014)

International Conferences

• Chair, National Astronomy Conference (Groningen, The Netherlands, 2019)
• SOC, symposium at the European Week of Astronomy and Space Science (Lyon, France, 2019)
• PI, symposium at the European Week of Astronomy and Space Science (Liverpool, U.K., 2018)
• SOC member for international conference on galaxies in the epoch of reionization (France, 2018)
• PI, special session at the European Week of Astronomy and Space Science (Czech Republic, 2017)
• SOC member for international conference on high-redshift galaxies (Argentina, 2017)
• Co-PI for conference on cosmic reionization (Austria, 2017)
• PI for splinter session at National Dutch Astronomy Meeting (Germany, 2016)
• SOC member session at European Week of Astronomy and space Science (Switzerland, 2014)
• LOC member for intergalactic medium conference (Edinburgh, U.K., 2013)
• LOC member for early galaxies conference (Potsdam, Germany, 2012)
• Co-PI for “Young and Bright” conference (Potsdam, Germany, 2011)

Academic staff supervised

Postdocs: