Nathaniel Starkman

I am a computational astrophysicist researching dark matter — what it is, and how it shapes galaxies — mostly by using stellar streams to constrain their gravitational potentials, in the Milky Way and far beyond it with large-scale surveys.

When a star cluster is torn apart by its host galaxy, the debris can trace a long, thin stream. Properties of the stream — its path, shape, width, etc — are all sensitive to properties of the host, including its dark matter. I develop and apply novel methods to study these streams and learn about the dark matter; I also build much of the software powering these methods and analyses. I am also a core developer of Astropy, helping to power all of astronomy.

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