Professor Gerhardt Meurer

I am interested in the interrelationship between the interstellar medium (ISM) and the other contents of galaxies, especially the various populations of stars and Dark Matter.  In particular, I am interested in how stars form in galaxies: how that depends on the properties of the ISM (the “Star Formation Law”), and the distribution of stellar masses that form in star formation events (the “Initial Mass Function” of stars).

My research is largely observational, and uses telescopes on the ground and orbiting the Earth. These include the Hubble Space Telescope, the Galex Space Telescope, Cerro Tololo Inter American Observatory, and the Australia Telescope Compact Array.  I am also an investigator on the WALLABY Survey which uses the ASKAP – the Australia Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder.

I am the principal investigator of two large surveys of star formation in the near Universe.  They are SINGG – the Survey of Ionization in Neutral Gas Galaxies and SUNGG – the Survey of Ultraviolet emission in Nearby Galaxies.  Currently much of my science work is directed at producing the final publications from these surveys.

Below is an image of the face-on galaxy NGC 7424 as seen using combined data from SINGG and SUNGG.

HIPASS J2257-41, also known as NGC 7424, shown in the light of ionized hydrogen [red], optical wavelengths [green] and ultraviolet wavelengths [blue]. The data used in this image come from the SINGG and SUNGG surveys.