Welcome!

I am an astronomer at Steward Observatory, University of Arizona and a member of the JWST/MIRI Science Team. I study supermassive black holes (SMBHs) and galaxies across the cosmic time with a focus on their infrared properties.

Unravelling the mysteries of SMBHs and their relationship with galaxies is a major mission in extragalactic astronomy. How do SMBH influence galaxy formation and evolution? What are the mechanisms behind their growth and interactions with surrounding matter? Addressing these questions requires a complete census of the active galactic nuclei (AGN) and galaxies with reasonable constraints on their properties. However, the existence of large amount of dust makes many systems obscured and greatly complicates the interpretations of the observation.

Cartoon of AGN dusty environment at various scales (check our review)

Unlike many astronomers who have been annoyed by dust, I take advantage of its IR emission to search and characterize AGN and their host systems with the combination of various data and techniques across the electromagnetic spectrum. This includes multi-wavelength diagnostics from deep X-ray, optical, IR and radio surveys to search for obscured AGNs across cosmic time (see ref1, ref2), comparative spectral energy distribution (SED) analysis of the unresolved multi-band UV-to-submm photometry measurements of low-z objects and high-z ones to obtain insights on the AGN dusty environment (e.g., ref3, ref4, ref5), optical to near-IR time variability and dust reverberation mapping to probe the very inner structures of the AGN torus (e.g., ref6, ref7). I also conduct image morphological study, optical–to–mid-IR integral field unit (IFU) and spectroscopic observations of AGN and galaxies near and far with various ground- and space-based telescopes. Sometimes I even do numerical simulations and run complicated models on supercomputers to explain the observations. You can learn more in the research page.

I grew up in a less-developed city in western China, where light pollution was minimal, fostering my lifelong passion for astronomy since childhood. Even today, I find joy in stargazing occasionally, with a particular enthusiasm for chasing total solar eclipses and practicing astrophotography. Besides amateur astronomy, my interests include drawing, painting, endurance running, anime, and sci-fi. For more about my non-work-related life, please visit the personal page.