Here is our current membership policy and application form.
SMWLV places no restrictions on members’ institutional status, career stage, or LSST data rights access status. SMWLV welcomes all individuals who can make a contribution to furthering SMWLV science.
See here for information regarding data rights.
We currently have 200 members. A full list can be viewed below, as well as member profiles.
Affiliation: Universidad Andrés Bello, Chile
Research focus: Mapping the MW disk and bulge with globular clusters and variable stars
Most excited about from Rubin:
Synergy with the VVVX survey and the Roman Space Telescope
Something you want people to know about you: Passionate about MW Astronomy and football.
Affiliation: Universidad Andrés Bello, Chile
Research focus: Magellanic Clouds, Milky Way, Star Clusters
Most excited about from Rubin:
Photometric depth for stars in the Magellanic Clouds
Something you want people to know about you: PI of the VISCACHA survey
Affiliation: UCLA
Research focus: Globular clusters; Galactic bulge
Most excited about from Rubin:
wide field surveys of the bulge and globular clusters; astrometry; photomeric stability
Something you want people to know about you: I enjoy collaborating internationally and working with young people. I am interested in art and music
Affiliation: INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico di Roma
Research focus: Pulsating stars as stellar tracers
Most excited about from Rubin:
I'm super excited because I’m about to watch the start of the best movie about the southern sky. It’s going to be a long one, but I’m sure it’ll be anything but boring!
Something you want people to know about you: I love hanging out in small crowds listening to live music, or being totally on my own, exploring different waters on my awesome SUP. The rest of the time I’m just out and about!
Affiliation: University of New South Wales
Research focus: Stellar streams and globular clusters
Most excited about from Rubin:
Finding the outside edge of the Milky Way
Something you want people to know about you: I love to knit! I've always got a sock or a hat on the needles.
Affiliation: UC San Diego
Research focus: Machine learning in the solar neighborhood
Most excited about from Rubin:
I am extremely excited about the time series photometry and all the interesting, unique, and rare sources we will discover in the nearby solar neighborhood. I am also interested in measuring parallaxes for the faintest dwarfs nearby to better characterize their fundamental properties.
Something you want people to know about you: I am a Lego fanatic! It is the first thing you notice when you step into my office.
Affiliation: Indian Institute of Astrophysics
Research focus: Spectroscopic followup of metal poor stars, stellar activity, variable stars
Most excited about from Rubin:
Variability map of stellar population across HR diagram
Affiliation: LSW, Center for Astronomy of Heidelberg University (Germany)
Research focus: Using machine learning to blindly catalogue Milky Way star clusters
Most excited about from Rubin:
All the stars! Rubin will be best-in-class for studying fainter, low-mass stars.
Something you want people to know about you: I spend a lot of time playing guitar and doing studio & live sound engineering
Affiliation: Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics
Research focus: Numerical simulations of galaxy formation with star clusters
Most excited about from Rubin:
Rubin is going to allow us to map the extended spatial distributions of GCs around galaxies, and we can use it estimate the underlying mass distribution.
Something you want people to know about you: I like having a creative and manual hobby on the side, currently I'm learning how to sew.
Affiliation: Universidad de Concepción
Research focus: Machine learning on star clusters, pre-main sequence stars.
Most excited about from Rubin:
I'm excited about the idea of studying fainter sources and getting to know the tiny members of star clusters, perhaps they can be a bit shy!
Something you want people to know about you: I love music, traveling, exploring cities like a tourist, and getting lost in their streets! I also still count with my fingers.
Affiliation: Waterloo Centre for Astrophysics/Perimeter Institute
Research focus: Extragalactic globular clusters
Most excited about from Rubin:
Rubin will provide a homogeneous survey with huge wavelength coverage, allowing us to map globular clusters across different types of galaxies at larger distances than before. We will learn so much about how they form and it will unlock their potential as tracers of stellar populations!
Something you want people to know about you: I spend most of my free time reading, knitting or playing video games! I'm also slowly developing a passion for birdwatching because there's so many cool birds in Canada
Affiliation: Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul - UFRGS and BPG-LSST
Research focus: Galaxy evolution, star clusters, resolved stellar populations
Most excited about from Rubin:
I'm excited for the results and studies that will follow from the great capability of the telescope to scan the night sky with efficiency. It will, for sure, revolutionize observational astronomy.
Something you want people to know about you: I'm a big fan of 70s/80s rock music, and a gym enthusiast among other sports.
Affiliation: Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul - UFRGS and BPG-LSST
Research focus: Star Clusters, (Extragalactic) Globular Clusters, Galactic Formation and Evolution
Most excited about from Rubin:
To be able to have a lot of new and deeper information about the night sky and the mapping of the sky that will enable us to expand our research.
Something you want people to know about you: I really enjoy watching movies, listening to music and travelling.
Affiliation: Universidade Federal do Paraná (UFPR), BPG-LSST
Research focus: Galaxy formation and evolution, star clusters: currently trying to improve the detection of extragalactic GCs
Most excited about from Rubin:
To try to explore its unprecedented sea of data using clever techniques, hopefully unrevealing new patterns and insights!
Something you want people to know about you: I love music in all of its forms, linguistics, hiking, etc. :)