Associate Professor Michelle Cluver

Biography

I am currently a researcher in the Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing, with a focus on how galaxies evolve in groups and within large scale structure environments. I obtained a PhD in Astronomy from the University of Cape Town in 2009, and was awarded the PhD Medal for Best Thesis in the Faculty of Science. I have held postdoctoral research positions at the Spitzer Science Center (California Institute for Technology), as a Super Science Fellow (Australian Astronomical Observatory), as an NRF Multi-wavelength Fellow (University of Cape Town) and as an NRF Research Career Advancement Fellow (University of the Western Cape). I joined Swinburne in 2018 as an ARC Future Fellow. My broad research interest is at the intersection of the physics that drives (and inhibits) star formation, and the cascade of these effects on the elemental chemistry of star formation, i.e. the interplay between gas, dust, stars, and gravity.
 
My current research focus is on the evolution of galaxies within groups, a key environment in the transformation of galaxies from star-forming disks to bulge-dominated, relatively quiescent systems. By using mid-infrared and radio wavelengths, we can ameliorate the effects of dust extinction in order to probe stellar mass, star formation and the distribution of neutral gas, the fuel for star formation, in these systems. I am an expert user of mid-infrared data of galaxies from the WISE space telescope and its calibration for stellar mass and star formation rate measurements.

I am co-PI of the 4MOST Hemisphere Survey (4HS) which will obtain redshifts and spectra of close to 6 million galaxies in the z<0.15 universe. In addition, I am co-PI of MeerHOGS (the MeerKAT Habitat of Galaxies Survey) where we are pioneering the mosaicing capabilities of the MeerKAT SKA Pathfinder in support of sensitive, medium area, local universe studies of the content and distribution of neutral, atomic gas across different environments.