Profile

I am an Astrophysicist who wanted to study literature, Portuguese and English (and then Theoretical Physics) and that loves sports, particularly volleyball and football. I also enjoy reverse-engineering food and being creative at all sorts of tasks, which sometimes leads to “interesting” burnt cakes or pizzas – but, hey, Science! I love music, poetry and theatre and meeting outstanding people with different passions and interests that can inspire us to be better. I love the beach, the Sun, blue skies and clear night skies, yet somehow I have chosen to live and work in Scotland, England and in the Netherlands for most of the past 10 years.

I use lots of incredibly large telescopes on the ground and in space to observe the extragalactic Universe (beyond our own galaxy, the spectacular Milky Way). I capture information that reaches the Earth (and space) in the form of high energy photons like X-rays, but also all the way through to the coldest temperatures traced by infrared and radio. My research advances our understanding of how galaxies like our own formed and evolved from the primitive Universe till today. Some of my most famous discoveries include measuring the decline of the cosmic star-formation history over the last 11 billion years and discovering the brightest distant galaxies, including the world-famous galaxy COSMOS Redshift 7 (CR7), among many other discoveries to do with the roles of nature and nurture in galaxy evolution. I have been lucky to have had some of my discoveries covered by the media world-wide (e.g. New York Times, TIME, BBC, CNN) reaching lots of people and allowing me to further explore my passion for Science outreach and for explaining what I do in simple terms. I am definitely very passionate about sharing Science, Astronomy and Physics with the general public. I have done talks in various countries, appearing in the media, designing and implementing master-classes or by writing opinion articles in national newspapers and magazines. I also love teaching at Lancaster University, mentoring the next generation of amazing scientists, and giving young people fantastic research opportunities form a young age, so they can do brilliant discoveries by themselves!

Is anything but typical! Sometimes I start it by teaching maths, other times Astronomy. Many times I start it by chatting science with my students or collaborators, and trying to figure out what new data implies for distant galaxies. Other days I get to talk with students, young and not so young, or travel to schools and art museums to give outreach talks. I particularly love it when I “have to” go to Hawaii, Chile or La Palma to observe on the largest telescopes in the World, or go to conferences throughout the World to present new results and discoveries and discuss them with the best Scientists. From coding to writing papers, from teaching to mentoring and supervising, from being creative or persevering on a really hard problem, my typical day is brilliant because it is never typical or dull, particularly when it’s full of Science!