Giuseppina

Battaglia

Perfil profesional

Keywords: Astronomy and Astrophysics; Resolved stellar populations; galaxy evolution; Local Group; dwarf galaxies; Milky Way; dark matter; kinematics and dynamics; spectroscopy.

I am a staff researcher at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, Spain. I received my PhD (“cum laude”) in 2007, at the Kapteyn Astronomical Institute, University of Groningen (NL). I was then awarded an ESO fellowship (ESO Headquarters, Garching bei Muenchen, Germany), a Marie Curie Intra-European fellowship (INAF - Astronomical Observatory of Bologna, Italy) and a Ramón y Cajal fellowship (Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias [IAC], Spain).

My main scientific interest is to use resolved stellar populations in galaxies from the smallest galactic scales to those of the Milky Way, in and to beyond the Local Group, to shed light on the processes that drive galaxy evolution and to gain insights in the nature of dark matter (DM).

I mainly focus on the smallest galactic scales, i.e. those of dwarf galaxies, as they are particularly powerful for addressing these major questions. Our Local Group contains a plentiful population of such systems, around 100 and counting, which can be studied in great detail from their resolved stellar populations and that allows us to peer into the lowest mass end of the galaxy mass function, in a regime where galaxies are highly dark matter dominated. There is therefore a strong interest in determining accurately and precisely what is the dark matter content and distribution of these galaxies as this can provide constraints on the nature of dark matter and insights on the interplay between dark matter and baryonic processes.

I particularly like to adopt a multi-faceted approach, in which observations, dynamical modeling and idealized or cosmological simulations come together to build a comprehensive understanding of the characteristics of the systems under consideration and interpret them in terms of formation and evolutionary processes.

For several years I have been the PI of the IAC team “Galaxy Evolution in the Local Group” (2016-2019), and I am now the PI of the IAC transversal project “Dark matter: observations, models and detection”. From 2017 till 2024, I have been part of the IAC Severo Ochoa Coordination Committee, first as representative of the “Stars and Interstellar Medium” research line and then as representative of the “Milky Way and Local Group” research line, which I contributed to create.

I am part of the science team of several facilities and instruments. In particular, I am deputy Science Team Lead of the WEAVE Galactic Archaeology (GA) survey, co-lead of the WEAVE GA Low resolution high latitude sub-survey (GA-LRhighlat, targeting the Milky Way stellar halo and thick disc, including streams and dwarf galaxies) and WEAVE Builder; I am also co-I of two approved VISTA/4MOST community surveys (4DWARFS and 4Grounds). Recently, I became a member of the Wide-field Spectroscopic telescope science team, where I contribute to the activities of the Resolved Stellar Populations working group. Due to my interest in the potential for spectroscopy of resolved stellar populations beyond the Local Group, I am part of the ELT/HARMONI and ELT/MOSAIC science team and was a member of the ELT Science Office at ESO, which helped to prepare the ELT Science Case summary at the end of 2009 (see here). Other collaborations I am part of: Euclid (Milky Way and Resolved Stellar Populations working group), Pristine, HRMOS, The Maunakea Spectroscopic Explorer.