2013 January 14:     Anneya defends her MSc thesis

Anneya successfully defends her MSc thesis, entitled “Blue BX Galaxies Breaking Bad”, in which she investigates the dust properties of these z~2 objects, finding that many of them have interstellar dust that’s different than most people have been assuming thus far.  Congratulations, Anneya!  Next step: PhD!

2013 February 19:     Seminar at Tohoku University

Today I gave a seminar at the Astronomical Institute of Tohoku University. I am spending my sabbatical at Tohoku University, so this was the shortest trip I ever had to do to present a colloquium: in simply involved walking down the hall!  I talked about galaxies at redshift z~2, showing results from my recent work as well those from a forthcoming paper led by Liz. I also showed some very preliminary results from work I am doing currently on galaxy quenching. These generated considerable interest and I am really looking forward to discussion that I will have with several Tohoku colleagues over the next weeks and months on this topic.

2013 March 7-8:     Visit to IPMU

I spend a couple of days and give a seminar at the Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe in Kashiwa near Tokyo.  Good discussions about wide-field imaging projects and other things.

2013 March 29:     Bobby wins an NSERC PGS-D Scholarship

Group member and PhD student Bobby Sorba wins an NSERC PGS-D Scholarship. Bobby’s scholarship-winning research project is entitled “Galaxy Stellar Mass Estimation Through Pixel-by-Pixel Fitting”.  Well done - and well deserved - Bobby!  

2013 May 8:     CFHT Users’ Meeting

Liz and I attend the CFHT Users’ Meeting in Campbell River, B.C. (photo shows the view from the conference venue).  Liz gives a talk on our recently-submitted paper on the numbers of passive and star-forming galaxies at redshift z~2. Liz’s talk went very well and was well received.  Good job, Liz!

2013 July 19:     Redshift z~2 luminosity and mass functions paper accepted by MNRAS

Our paper on the luminosity and mass functions of passive and star-forming galaxies at z~2 is accepted for publication by MNRAS.  This is Liz’s first paper (congratulations, Liz!) and - for the first time - shows conclusively that the luminosity and mass functions of passive BzK-selected galaxies have a peak at around 1011 solar masses. The paper will be available from MNRAS in due course, and until then you can find it on arXiv.