Sandor Kruk

Research Fellow

 

Main Research Fields

My scientific interests lie in the formation and evolution of galaxies through cosmic time and my research is focused on measuring the morphology of galaxies and the exploration of large datasets. I use crowdsourcing projects such as Galaxy Zoo to visually classify galaxies as well as quantitative measures such as bulge-bar-disc decompositions in multi-wavelength data. I am interested in the dynamical processes that lead to the formation of galaxy structure, and their subsequent role in shaping galaxies. With the upcoming ESA Euclid mission, I plan to measure these structures and study their redshift evolution.
 
I am also interested in mining data archives, such as the ESA science archives, using citizen science and machine learning, being the PI of the Hubble Asteroid Hunter (www.asteroidhunter.org), a citizen science project asking members of the public to identify asteroids in the Hubble archives. Check out these articles: Foreground asteroid passing the Crab Nebula,  Galaxies – with a chance of asteroids, Citizen scientists find asteroids in Hubble images and Hubble's celestial peanut. 
 
Being passionate about education and increasing the access of young people to science education, I initiated three large projects: Romanian Science Festival, the British Astronomy and Astrophysics Olympiad, and the Oxford for Romania Summer school, reaching thousands of students every year.
 
 
 

Keywords

  • Galaxy formation and evolution
  • Galaxy morphology
  • Multi-wavelength astronomical surveys
  • Citizen science
  • Machine learning
  • Data mining
  • Education and public engagement

Ongoing collaborations

  • Galaxy Zoo Collaboration (crowdsourced astronomy project)
  • Zooniverse Collaboration (largest and most successful citizen science platform)
  • Euclid - Galaxy Morphology Working Group, Strong Lensing Working Group and Solar System Objects Working Group
  • SDSS-IV (MaNGA IFU survey)
  • Individual collaborations: Victor Debattista (UCLan, UK), Peter Erwin (MPE, Germany), James Trayford (ICG, Portsmouth), Mike Walmsley (Manchester), Heikki Salo (Oulu, Finland), Rene Laureijs (ESTEC, Netherlands), Henk Hoekstra (Leiden Observatory), Pedro Russo (Leiden Observatory), Claudia Mignone (INAF, Rome).

Publications

List of publications

Project/mission at ESA

EUCLID

HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE

I am keen on enaging with the public through citizen science (www.zooniverse.org), giving space talks, organizing science festivals (Romanian Science Festival) and science competitions (I have been the UK team leader at the International Astronomy and Astrophysics Olympiad (IOAA) 2015-2018, member of the International Board of IOAA and coordinator of the British Astronomy and Astrophysics Olympiad).