Graduate Students: Daniel Capellupo

Dan Capellupo is a native from New Jersey.

In junior high he felt inclined to be an astronaut and go to space. He was good with maths and science looked like a logical option for his future. His father used to have astronomy magazines at home and looking at the cool pictures on them, he figured out that he could stay in the ground and study those things from here.

After going to the University of Rochester in New York for undergraduate, he had no idea of what area of astronomy he was going to dive in. So, he applied to schools all over the country. He recalls “I mostly wanted to get out of the North East. I got accepted to several schools, but I found out that UF offered a lot of options, so I could decide what I wanted to study after I got there.”

After five years and about to finish his PhD he says: “It seems like I made a good choice, things have worked out here so far. The department is continually growing and improving and there is a lot of interesting research going on.”

Dan works with Prof Fred Hamann on a project studying quasars. Quasars are very bright objects in the center of some galaxies, mostly pretty far away. “The ones I study are around 10 billion light years away.” He explains.

In the early life of some galaxies there is a quasar phase that probably lasts up to 50 million years. The quasar has a super massive black hole in the center surrounded by a disk of accreting material. Studying the gas clouds that surround the Quasar it’s possible know more about its evolution and how it affects to the rest of the galaxy.

For his observation, Dan used two telescopes, the MDM 2.4 meters and the 2.1 Kitt Peak telescope, both at Kitt Peak observatory in Arizona. These are relatively small telescopes and don’t have an operator, like the bigger telescopes which have their own crews of technicians. “I had to operate the telescopes myself. A couple of times I've been alone there. It is a great experience, but kind of scary if something goes wrong. Even being small telescopes they may cost a couple of million dollars and if you break it people will be upset with you.”

 

After doing the research comes the time of publishing the results. “It’s a long process. You have to write the paper, summit it, and it can go back and forth with the referee until it’s finally accepted. When my first paper was accepted for publication I felt like I was officially a scientist.” Dan says.

Besides doing his classes and research, Dan was on the board of the grad student association for 4 years. “The first year I was treasurer and then the next two years I was a student-faculty liaison. I had to meet with our graduate coordinator and with the chair of the department to explain any problems that the graduate students were having or to find out things that we, the graduate students, should be aware of. So we tried to keep the communication open between faculty and students.” He remembers. “The past year he was president which means he was in charge of the organization, making sure that meetings where held every month to discuss issues and things to be taken to the faculty. “In one hand you have to deal with problems and issues, but it also is a social position. It’s a big department with many students.”

Finally, he says “If you consider coming here, I would say that there are a lot of good things in the department. There are a lot of research opportunities and in almost all the fields of astronomy. Also, the people here form a nice, friendly community and if you seek help for something they are going to be there.”