Astronomer | Carnegie Observatories
Office 217 | 813 Santa Barbara Street, Pasadena CA 91101
About my work: I am an astronomer, broadly interested in the first stars and galaxies. To study these earliest times, I bring together observations at several extremes. At one is direct observations of some of the most distant galaxies known, the light of which has taken nearly the age of the Universe to reach our telescopes and thus are viewed as they formed gigayears ago. At another is detailed dissections of very faint, low-mass galaxies nearby that harbor massive stars just now forming from nearly-pristine gas, which represent our best glimpse of massive stars and ionized gas under conditions approaching those encountered in the distant Universe.
In technique I consider myself a broad observer but primarily a spectroscopist; and I leverage data from both classical observatories (particularly the twin 6.5-meter Magellan telescopes at Las Campanas Observatory) and space telescopes (including both the Hubble Space Telescope and JWST).
Pronouns: he/they. That is, I use and am comfortable with both he/him and they/them pronouns - use either or both as you like!
Name pronounciation (IPA): ˈpitər sɛnʧenɑ
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