Alejandro Serrano Borlaff
Affiliation: NASA/USRA
Phone: 650 604 5508
Email: a.s.borlaff@nasa.gov
Title: NASA Postdoctoral Fellow
Professional Biography:
I studied Physics at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, in Spain (2008-2013). I specialized in Astrophysics with a Master’s degree at the same University (2013-2014), and then I moved to the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias to complete my Ph.D. studies (2014-2018) and participate in the operations and support of the GHaFaS Fabry-Pérot integral field spectrograph at the William Herschel Telescope (La Palma, Roque de Los Muchachos). In 2019 I joined the European Space Agency as a visiting scientist working for the Euclid Space Telescope, when I was selected as a NASA Postdoctoral Fellow in the Ames Research Center, in California, my current position. Here I am continuing my work with the Euclid mission, developing new space telescopes (DUNES), exploring the magnetic field of external galaxies (SOFIA), as well as the outer regions of galaxies (Chandra, VLA, GTC) using multiwavelength telescopes, from X-ray to radio, including optical, near and far-infrared observations.
Education:
Physics, Astrophysics.
Research Interests:
Calibration, operations, and instrumentation of Space telescopes, Galaxy Evolution, extra-galactic magnetic fields, galaxy mergers, and structure. Studying the effects of space environment on space telescopes.
Selected Publications:
1 – Extragalactic Magnetism with SOFIA (Legacy Program). I. The Magnetic Field in the Multiphase Interstellar Medium of M51 – Borlaff, A. S.; Lopez-Rodriguez, E.; Beck, R., et al. (2021). ApJ, 921, 128B.
2 – Euclid preparation: XVI. Exploring the ultra low-surface brightness Universe with Euclid/VIS – Borlaff, A. S.; Gómez-Alvarez, P.; Altieri, B.; Marcum, P. M. et al. (2021). A&A. Euclid/ESA Key Project publication
3 – The Missing Light of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field – Borlaff, A. S., Trujillo, I., Román, J., Beckman, J. E., Eliche-Moral, M. C., et al. (2019). A&A, 621, A133.
Accepted Proposals:
SOFIA Cycle 9 observing proposal 09_0113: “Testing for multi-component magnetic fields and their effects on the structure of galactic disks”, 20.1h, SOFIA/HAWC+ D.
VLA Director’s Discretionary time proposal (May 2020) VLA/20A-485 “Flares, warps and breaks in the outskirts of the HI and stellar disk of UGC11859” 9h, HI observations, JVLA C-array configuration.
GTC 10.4m telescope. PID GTC61-18B “Ultra-deep imaging of edge-on galaxies: Flares, satellites and stellar halos” 8.4h, OSIRIS broadband imaging detector.
WHT 4.2m telescope. PID 96-WHT11/16B “UGC01382 – An elliptical galaxy surrounded by spiral arms” 24.0h. GHaFAS Fabry-Pérot spectrometer.
WHT 4.2m telescope. PID 121-WHT28/15B “The structure of dynamic resonances in galaxies. Stars vs. gas.” 16.0h, GHaFAS Fabry-Pérot spectrometer + ACAM imaging detector.
Websites:
Personal website
SOFIA Magnetic Fields in Galaxies
ABYSS Ultra Deep Field project
NASA Missions:
- SOFIA Legacy Program – Magnetic fields in Galaxies (PI: Lopez-Rodriguez, E.; Mao, A.). http://galmagfields.com/
Awards & Others:
Euclid Consortium (EC-US member) – Local Universe Science Working Group (2020)
Finnish Centre for Astronomy with ESO visitor program fellowship (University of Oulu, 2018)
International Space Science Institute member – “Exploring the Ultra-Low Surface Brightness Universe” group (Bern, Switzerland, 2017)
ERASMUS+ Fellowship (University of Oulu, 2017)