Dr. Mariangela Bernardi

Biography

Mariangela Bernardi is a Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Pennsylvania. Her work focuses on the analysis of galaxy properties and environmental influences to understand their formation and evolution, as well as co-evolution with super-massive black holes. She has contributed significantly to the study of large-scale structures, peculiar motions, and the Ly-alpha forest in Quasi-Stellar Objects (QSOs). Bernardi has been instrumental in assembling and analyzing the ENEAR database for peculiar velocity studies and has developed the world's largest catalog of early-type galaxies through her involvement with the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). Her research demonstrated that minor mergers are a more important assembly mechanism for massive galaxies than previously thought and highlighted the chemical composition variations in early-type galaxies based on environmental dependence. She actively collaborates on projects that utilize Deep Learning techniques for estimating galaxy morphologies from surveys. Bernardi's group has produced significant catalogs and documentation in the SDSS-IV Data Release 15, including MaNGA and deep learning-derived morphological classifications, enhancing tools for exploring galaxy dynamics and evolution.

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