David Stark
he/him/his
Post Doctorate Research Fellow
Strawbridge Observatory C
dstark@haverford.edu

Research Interests

My research largely focuses on how galaxies are "fueled".  This means I study the gas within galaxies, which is fundamentally important because you need gas to make new stars, and making new stars is how galaxies grow.  I try to undersand (a) what affects the global gas reservoirs of galaxies (how are they replenished, why do some galaxies lose their gas and stop forming stars?) and (b) how galaxies turn that gas reservoir into dense clouds (what are the local conditions, are their global properties of galaxies that impact their ability to form stars?). I have used single dish radio telescopes (GBT, Arecibo, ARO 12m, IRAM) to quantify the total atomic hydrogen (diffuse gas reservoir) and molecular hydrogen (dense, star forming gas) in large samples to explore how environmental affects overall gas content.  I'm also using radio inteferometers like VLA and ALMA to map gas distributions in detail to understand exactly how gas and star formation are effected in galaxy groups.  But I don't only use radio telescopes; I've used optical observations from the SDSS-IV MaNGA survey to identify the conditions within galaxies where star formation is efficient, as well as characterize distortions in ionized gas kinematics and how they relate to the ongoing evolution of galaxies. 

For more info, check out my personal website: http://member.ipmu.jp/david.stark/

Education:

  • B.S., Physics, Astronomy with Honors, University of Maryland at College Park
  • M.S., Physics and Astornomy, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
  • Ph.D., Physics and Astornomy, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Work History

  • Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Kavli IPMU, University of Tokyo, 2015-2019
  • Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Haverford College, 2019 - present