Currently I'm in my third and final year of PhD studies at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy. I've been working with Dr. Knud Jahnke, as a member of his Emmy-Noether research group "Coevolution of Galaxies and Black Holes".

These last couple of years I've been mainly interested in the relationship between galaxies and their central supermassive black holes. In particular, I focus on galaxies that host an active galactic nucleus (AGN), from which I have been able to study the mechanisms that drive the periods of major black hole growth, and constrain the evolution of the relation between the mass of the black hole and the stellar mass of the galaxy over cosmic time.

NEWS:
23 Sep, 2011 - New paper about the relation between black hole mass and galaxy stellar mass, and its lack of evolution over the last 7 billion years.
05 Jan, 2011 - Check out some of the press coverage on our recent paper about mergers and their role in the black hole growth during the last 8 billion years!

• Official press releases:
    European Space Agency, at SpaceTelescope.org and ESA
    Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie, available in english/deutsch
  
• Media response: Science | Space.com | Wired | Astronomy Now | Universe Today | PhysOrg | Astronomy Magazine | CBS News | El Pais | Le Scienze | and more...