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Thinh Nguyen (Thịnh Nguyễn)

Profile picture for Thinh Nguyen (Thịnh Nguyễn)

Contact Information

130 Astronomy
1002 W. Green St.
Urbana, IL
M/C 221
Graduate Student

Biography

Hi, my name is Thinh Nguyen and I come from Vietnam. I am a second-year graduate student who is working with Professor Kirk Barrow on studying galaxy evolution in cosmological simulation. I am interested in galaxy mergers, particularly their role in the hierarchical structure formation of the universe and their effect on star formation, metallicity, and morphology of galaxies.

Research Description

Currently, I am working on two research projects:

  • Investigating the Effect of Galaxy Mergers on Star Formation and Morphology through the Viewpoint of Different Simulation Codes in the AGORA Simulation Suite. AGORA is an international collaboration working on a well-calibrated set of eight major cosmological simulation codes (ENZO, GADGET-3, AREPO, RAMSES, ART, GIZMO, GEAR, and CHANGA). This dataset allows a robust comparison between our current simulation codes, helping us examine our current feedback models and thus enhancing the predictive power of simulations. Because mergers are intricate processes that are highly sensitive to many properties of the progenitor galaxies, they serve as a useful setting to evaluate our present theoretical models.
  • Effect of molecular hydrogen self-shielding modeling on galaxy evolution. Even though molecular hydrogen is a crucial ingredient in star formation, modeling their behavior is a computationally heavy task and thus approximation is often used in simulations. However, approximation, while saving time, comes with a cost of accuracy. By comparing with the accurate ray-tracing method, this project examines whether the optically-thin approximation of the molecular hydrogen self-shielding effect leads to significantly different results when simulating galaxy formation. 

Education

B.S in Astronomy and B.A in Physics, Villanova University, 2018 - 2022

Courses Taught

ASTR 121 Solar System and Worlds Beyond, Fall 2022, TA

ASTR 121 Solar System and Worlds Beyond, Spring 2023, TA

Co-chair of UIUC Journal Club

Highlighted Publications

Nguyen, T. and Guinan, E. (2022). Stars on the Verge: Analyses of the Complex Light Variations of the Hyper-Luminous Red Supergiant VY Canis Majoris: On the Nature of the Star’s "Great Dimming" Episodes. RNAAS 6 12