About
My name is Tigran Khanzadyan and I am an astrophysicist studying the star formation phenomena in our own Galaxy using multi-waveband observations and analytico-theoretical approaches. My desire is to understand how the stars are formed and evolve to construct a global picture for the origin of stars and their environment.
I’m originally from Yerevan, Armenia – a small country in Caucasus. Apart from beautiful nature and the hospitable people we have also a long history of Astronomical research starting from ancient times continuing to the modern times which inspired me to pursue a career in Astronomy and Astrophysics from my early teens.
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My Career
I’ve graduated from the Physics Department of Yerevan State University at 1997 with a Diploma in Physics. My diploma title was “The Study of Host Galaxies of AGNs” (in Armenian) and my thesis supervisor was Dr. Artashes Petrosian (Byurakan Observatory, Armenia).
From 1997 till 1999 I did my Post-Graduate Study at the Byurakan Astrophysical Observatory in Armenia. The subjects of my study where “Radiative Transfer Theory” supervised by Prof. A. G. Nikogosian and the “Star Formation” supervised by Dr. T. Movsessian and Dr. T. Yu. Magakian.
From 1999 till 2002 I’ve done my Ph.D. studies at the Armagh Observatory, Northern Ireland, UK under supervision of Prof. Michael D. Smith (currently at Kent). In 2002 I’ve defended my thesis entitled “The Near-Infrared Tracks of Protostellar Outflows“.
From 2002 to 2005 I worked in the department of Planet and Star Formation at the Max-Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg, Germany. The research topic was the studies of Bok Globules using multi-band observational data for SED compilation and modelling.
From 2005 to 2006 I worked at in the department of Stellar Astrophysics at the Centro de Astrofisica da Universidade do Porto (CAUP), Porto, Portugal. The research that I carried out was under self-proposed research plan dedicated to the studies of Outflows from Bok Globules.
From 2006 till now I’m working in the Centre for Astronomy of the NUIG, Galway, Ireland. The research is dedicated to study of Massive Star Formation using observations and non-LTE Radiative transfer modelling. More details on my current research activities can be obtained from my Projects page.
Experience and Skills
Observing
- Observing experience using Calar Alto 3.5m telescope (Almeria, Spain) with MAGIC, Omega Prime and Omega 2000 near-infrared cameras – from 2000 till 2005 over 50 nights. Observations of molecular clouds and jets in several near-infrared lines. Additional experience in using Calar Alto 1.23 and 2.2m telescopes – several nights.
- Observing experience using ESO – NTT (La Silla, Chile) telescope with SOFI near-infrared camera – over 9 nights. Experience in mapping of large Star Formation regions with non standard self-developed jittering techniques.
- Observing experience using BAO 2.6m telescope (Byurakan, Armenia) – from 1997 till 1999 over 60 nights. Optical observations of HH objects. Observing technique and telescope technical maintenance.
Astronomical Data Handling
- Extensive knowledge of various STARLINK packages, especially CCDPACK, KAPPA, GAIA-SkyCat and PHOTOM packages. Extensive experience in automatic data reduction and mosaicking using self developed pipelines based on Unix Shell scripting language.
- Extensive knowledge of general IRAF routines and packages like (X)DIMSUM and DAOPHOT.
- Extensive experience in data analysis and programming with IDL using many self-developed and community programs based on ASTROLIB and CDS software routines.
- Substantial experience in obtaining, processing and analysis of the Archival data from the different ground and space based surveys like 2MASS, UKIDSS, IRAS, SPITZER, etc
- Experience in Radio line and continuum data reduction with different packages like SPECX and SMURF and MOPSIC. Sufficient knowledge of different radio-data formats and their processing techniques.
- Knowledge of reduction and analysis of Interferometric Data from VLTI (attended a training course).
- Basic knowledge data handling with ECLIPSE and MIDAS routines.
Computing
- Good knowledge of various operating systems with particular emphasise towards astronomical software installation, administration and everyday usage. In particular substantial knowledge in Mac OSX (current working environment), various Linux distributions, SunOS and Digital UNIX on Alpha workstations. Sufficient experience with Microsoft Windows OS environment.
- Knowledge of High Performance Computing theory and understanding of Message Passing Interface – MPI (attended a training course). Sufficient experience in running and debugging a 3D non-LTE radiative transfer code.
- Experience in several programming languages such as C, Fortran 77/90/95, Perl and AWK. Additional experience in Visual, Basic, Pascal and Turbo Pascal programming languages.
- Extensive experience at web page design, good knowledge of (X)HTML, CSS, PHP scripting and the web standards. Experience as a webmaster and editor for the several home pages.
