Laura Congreve Hunter

Post-Doctoral Research Associate at Dartmouth College

Research Interests

I am a Post-doctoral Research Associate at Dartmouth College in the Physics and Astronomy Department. My primary research is the formation and evolution of low-mass galaxies. This spans the range from galaxies the size of the LMC down to galaxies with stellar masses less than 10^6 solar masses. I am currently working on two primary projects: the survey ID-MAGE and the timescales of stellar feedback.

ID-MAGE (Identifying Dwarfs of MC Analog GalaxiEs) is a survey designed to discover and characterize satellites of LMC and SMC mass host galaxies between 4 and 10 Mpc away. The satellite candidates identified by the survey are published here! I am currently doing follow-up observations for these candidates. This includes confirming the candidates as satellites -- velocity measurements and surface brightness fluctuations -- and characterizing the satellites -- HI gas measurements and UV star formation rates.

Education

  • PhD in Astronomy Indiana University September 2023 Thesis

  • M.A in Astronomy Indiana University April 2021

  • B.A in Astronomy and Physics Mount Holyoke College May 2017

  • CV

Timescales of Stellar Feedback This is an observational project to measure the timescales over which stellar feedback drives turbulence in the ISM of dwarf galaxies. This work utilizes optical (HST and SparsePak IFU) and radio (VLA) data to measure spatially resolved star formation histories (SFHs) and gas kinematics. I analyze the gas kinematics and SFHs on the 400 parsec scale to compare recent star formation events with increases in the local turbulence. For an initial sample of 4 galaxies, my collaborators and I identified a correlation between the local star formation ~100 million years ago and the current atomic gas kinematics (Paper 1). The same correlation was seen for Holmberg II. I am working on a sample of over 20 galaxies to see if this correlation holds.