Research:Brian O'Halloran


Brian O'Halloran is an astronomer interested astrophysics, mostly in mid/far-infrared observations of starburst galaxies and active galactic nuclei, as part of studies concerned with galaxy evolution in the local universe, star formation in dwarf galaxies and the evolution of the interstellar medium in such systems. Starburst galaxies are currently undergoing a major epoch of star-formation that can dramatically alter the structure of the host galaxy and input large amounts of energy and mass into the interstellar medium. Understanding this feedback mechanism, particularly at high redshifts, is a key topic in understanding the structure and development of the earliest galaxies - studies of nearby targets allow us to probe galactic evolution at high spatial resolution and thus allow a baseline to be constructed for galaxy evolution at high redshift. With others at GMU and the Spitzer Legacy SAGE program, an international collaboration, I have studied a sample of nearby starburst galaxies at low and high metallicity in order to determine their star forming and ISM morphology, current state of star formation, the nature of their dust populations and the evolution of their local ISM as stellar population ages.

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