Curriculum vitae Ralf Christian Kotulla
- Academic Record
- Teaching experience
- Conferences, Meetings and summer schools
- Memberships and professional services
- Observing experience
- More
Academic Record:
- June 2001
- Abitur - German Grammar School degree
- 04/2002 - 09/2003
- Study of physics at Technische Universität Darmstadt
- 10/2003 - 06/2007
- Study of physics at Georg-August-Universität
Göttingen
financial support: excellence grant from Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung (10/03 - 11/05) - 09/2004 - 02/2005
- Semester abroad at Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, Netherlands
- Nov. 2006
- Graduation with Diploma in Physics: grade "very good"
Thesis: Optical spectroscopy and multiwavelength analysis of X-ray selected Active Galactic Nuclei - 07/2007 - 09/2010
- PhD Research studentship from University of Hertfordshire
- 01/2010 - 05/2010
- Research Internship at University of Wisconsin - Madison
Collaboration with Prof. Dr. Jay Gallagher on interacting galaxies - Sept. 2010
- PhD in Astrophysics
Thesis: Galaxy Evolution and the redshift desert
Advisors: Prof. Uta Fritze & Prof. Elias Brinks
Examiners: Prof. Max Pettini (IoA, Cambridge) and Prof. Martin Hardcastle (U. Herts) - 09/2010 - present
- Postdoctoral researcher at Center for Gravitation and Cosmology, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Teaching Experience
- 10/2003 - 09/2004, 03/2005 - 09/2006
- Teaching Assistent "Physikalisches Praktikum für Nebenfächler" (Physics lab courses for minor subject students), Institute for Nuclear and Atomic Physics, University Göttingen
- 04/2006 - 08/2006
- Teaching Assistent, "Einführung in die Geo- und Astrophysik",
Institute for Geophysics, University Göttingen - 09/2005 - 07/2007
- Teaching Assistent "Fortgeschrittenenpraktikum Astrophysik" (Advanced astrophysics lab-courses for 3rd-year students), Institute for Astrophysics, University Göttingen
- 09/2005 - 07/2007
- > 200
hours of observation with the IAG 50cm-telescope
Supervision of observations at the 0.5m telescope and of practical courses at the Institute for Astrophysics, University Göttingen - 02/2007 - 06/2007
- Supervision of two "Projektpraktikum" (2nd pratical, lasting ~2 weeks
full-time) groups:
- "Spektroskopie von aktiven Galaxienkernen'' (Spectroscopy of active galactic nuclei)
- "Bestimmung der Lichtgeschwindigkeit mittels variabler Sterne" (Determination of the speed of light using variable stars).
- 09/2005 - 07-2007
- Creation and supervision of two praticals for
third-year students:
- "Strukturanalyse von Galaxien" (Structure analysis of galaxies)
- "Photometrie von Sternhaufen" (Photometry of star clusters)
- 04/2007 - 07/2007
- Revision and extension of three
astrophysics beginner practicals:
- "Photometrie eines Sternhaufen" (Photometry of star clusters)
- "Morphologie von Galaxien" (Morphology of galaxies)
- "Spektren Aktiver Galaxien" (Spectra of active galaxies)
- 08/2008 - 12/2009
- Student demonstrator for astrophysics experiments at the university observatory in Bayfordbury
Meetings, Summer Schools, Workshops etc.
- Annual meeting of the
Nobel laureates in Lindau, 2005
- 37th Saas-Fee Winter School 2007, March 04-09
- The Origin of the Galaxy and the Local Group
- 12 Questions on Star and Massive Star Cluster Formation (ESO-Workshop, Garching), 2007, July 03-06
- Young Massive Star Clusters, 2007, Sept. 11-14 (Granada, Spain)
- Using Globular Clusters to derive the Formation History of the Virgo Lenticular NGC 4570 (Poster)
- Cosmic Matter (Annual AG Meeting), 2007, Sept. 24-28 (Würzburg, Germany)
- Using Globular Clusters to derive the Formation History of the Virgo Lenticular NGC 4570 (Poster)
- The Luminosity-Metallicity Relation for star-forming dwarf galaxies (Poster)
- National Astronomy Meeting (NAM), 2008, April 01-04 (Belfast)
- Young Globular Clusters in an old S0: Clues to the Formation history of NGC4570 (Talk)
- From Taurus to Antennae, 2008, August (Sheffield, UK)
- Globular clusters revealing the formation history on NGC 4570 (Talk)
- Joint European and National Astronomy Meeting (JENAM), 2008, September (Vienna, Austria)
- GALEV goes High-Redshift" (Talk)
- Revealing the formation history on NGC 4570 via the age distribution of its globular clusters" (Talk)
- 4 (of which 2 first-author) posters
- Photometric Accuracy Testing (PHAT) Meeting 2008, September (UCL, London, UK)
- The metallicity bias in photometric redshifts (Talk)
- Photometric Accuracy Testing (PHAT) Meeting 2008, December (JPL, Pasadena, CA)
- The metallicity bias in photometric redshifts (Talk)
- European Weak of Astronomy and Space Science 2009, April (Hatfield, UK)
- Photometric redshifts from chemically consistent templates (Poster)
- GALEV evolutionary synthesis models: The ideal tool to model high-redshift galaxies (Poster)
- Modelling galaxy transformation scenarios at z~0.4 with GALEV (Poster)
- Arp 78 and the Universality of the Stellar Initial Mass Functions (Poster)
- VIIth Marseille International Cosmology
Conference:
Harvesting the desert: The Universe between redshift 1 and 3, 2009, June (Marseille, France) - A unified approach to modelling galaxies not only in the redshift desert (Poster)
- IAU XXVII General Assembly 2009 2009, August (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil)
- GALEV evolutionary synthesis models (Poster)
- Modelling the chemical evolution of galaxies with GALEV (Poster)
- GALEV evolutionary synthesis models meet the high-redshift universe (Poster)
- 215th AAS Winter Meeting 2010, January (Washington, DC, USA)
- Galaxy evolution in the redshift desert (Dissertation-talk)
- 217th AAS Winter Meeting 2010, January(Seattle, WA, USA)
- Insights into galaxy evolution from photometric redshifts across many fields (Talk)
- IAU Symposium 284: The Spectral Energy Distributions of Galaxies 2011, September (Preston, GB)
- GALEV and photometric redshifts: Galaxy evolution across cosmic times (Poster)
- Surveys and Simulations: The Real and the Virtual Universe 2011, September (Heidelberg, Germany)
- GALEV evolutionary synthesis models: Current status and future plans (Poster)
- Galaxy clusters transforming dwarfs: Insights from stellar mass maps (Poster)
Memberships
- Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft (German Physical Society)
- Astronomische Gesellschaft (German Astronomical Society)
- European Astronomical Society
- American Astronomical Society
Professional Services
- Referee for the Astrophysical Journal
- Referee for the Astronomical Journal
- Referee for Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Observing experience - Optical Imaging
- 4 weeks SAAOCCD @ 1.0m SAAO, South Africa (3 runs)
- Stellar populations and dust
distribution in disk-galaxies
Cunow, Meyer, Kotulla, Papaderos, Gallagher
BVRI imaging of spiral galaxies in various environments - 3 nights OPTIC @ WIYN 3.5m, Kitt Peak, USA
- Tracing Star Formation in the
very outskirts of galaxies
Gallagher, Fritze, Kotulla
Deep VRI+Ha imaging of spiral galaxies - 6 nights S2KB @ WIYN 0.9m, Kitt Peak, USA
- Photometry of stars (most of the time lost to bad weather)
Observing experience - Near Infrared Imaging
- 2 nights SOFI @ NTT, ESO, La Silla
- Disentangling ages and
metallicities of Globular Clusters using K-band data
Fritze, Kotulla, Anders, de Grijs, Papaderos
Deep K-band imaging of NGC4570 - see publications for results - 4 nights WFCAM @ UKIRT, Mauna Kea, Hawaii
- Disentangling ages and
metallicities of red-peak Globular Clusters using K-band data
Kotulla, Fritze, Anders, deGrijs
Deep K-band imaging of several galaxies, Service Mode observations for other observers - 3 weeks SIRIUS @ IRSF, SAAO, South Africa (3 runs)
- Stellar populations and dust
distribution in disk-galaxies
Cunow, Meyer, Kotulla, Papaderos, Gallagher
JHK imaging of spiral galaxies in various environments - 5 nights WHIRC @ WIYN 3.5m, Kitt Peak, USA
- H-band observations of nearby galaxies to determine stellar mass distributions
Observing experience - Optical & Integral field spectroscopy
- 2 nights INTEGRAL @ WHT, La Palma
- Integral Field spectroscopy of
blue compact dwarf galaxies
Caon, Cairos, Papaderos, Meyer - 2 nights SparsePak @ WIYN 3.5m, Kitt Peak, USA
- Integral Field Spectroscopy of Interacting Galaxies
with the aim to study the kinematics and spatial distribution of star formation
Gallagher, Kotulla, et al.
Astronomical / Other Knowledge
- Programming
- C, C++, Fortran, PHP, Python, (Basic, Perl)
- MIDAS and IRAF Scripting, PyRAF
- Basics in MPI Parallel Computing
- Astronomical Software
- ESO-MIDAS, IRAF, StarLink, DAOPHOT
- Development of an efficient Data Reduction Pipeline (Mr. Miller) for optical AND near-infrared data from various intruments and telescopes
- Imaging and spectroscopy:
- Own observations (Optical and Near-Infrared, see above)
- ESO-, HST- and ING-Archives
- Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS)
- Other
- LaTeX, HTML, SQL, PHP, Perl, etc.