Integral Field Spectroscopy in Galaxies - Jorge Barrera-Ballesteros (UNAM)

Integral Field Spectroscopy in Galaxies - Jorge Barrera-Ballesteros (UNAM)

Abstract: Galaxies are spatially resolved objects on the sky, yet for decades, large photometric and spectroscopic surveys were limited to measuring their integrated properties. This changed with the development of Integral Field Spectroscopy (IFS), which enables simultaneous spectral measurements across different regions of a galaxy at kiloparsec scales. In this talk, I will provide an overview of IFS capabilities and discuss major optical IFS surveys such as CALIFA and SDSS-IV MaNGA. I will highlight their key contributions to extragalactic astrophysics, including the discovery of new scaling relations at kiloparsec scales across large galaxy samples. Finally, I will present the current landscape of IFS instrumentation in both ground-based and space facilities, including SDSS-V LVM and JWST.

Bio: Dr. Jorge K. Barrera Ballesteros is an astrophysicist and data scientist with more than a decade of experience analyzing large astronomical datasets. He earned his PhD in Astrophysics from the Universidad de La Laguna (Spain) and has worked at institutions such as Johns Hopkins University, the Instituto de Astronomía (UNAM, Mexico), and currently as an invited researcher at Université de Montréal. His research combines physics, advanced statistics, and machine learning to study how galaxies form and evolve. He has published over 120 peer-reviewed articles and has led international collaborations developing data pipelines that process terabytes of astronomical observations. Beyond research, he is passionate about mentoring students and showing how scientific methods and data analysis can be applied across many fields.