Maria Luiza L. Dantas
Post-doctoral researcher at Nicolaus Copernicus Astronomical Center - Warsaw, Poland

Hi there!
I am a researcher with a background in astrophysics and a passion for exploring the evolution of galaxies. I am currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Nicolaus Copernicus Astronomical Center in Warsaw, Poland. I study galaxy evolution, resolved and unresolved stellar populations, galactic archaeology, and astrostatistics.
I was born and raised in Brasília, Federal District, the capital of Brazil. Brasília was projected to become the capital of Brazil in the 1950s and was inaugurated in 1960, becoming a UNESCO world heritage site.
I became passionate about astronomy during my school years, especially after reading Carl Sagan's books. I read many of them, including The Deamon Haunted World, Billions & Billions, and Contact, among others. Only much later I had the opportunity of watching the Cosmos TV series.
In 2007 I moved to São Paulo, where I lived for 14 years, to pursue my Bachelor's degree in Physics at the University of São Paulo, which ended in 2011. After a short break working in a company, I did my Master's degree between 2013 and 2015. I then investigated whether the optical emission from galaxies could be linked to their emission in the ultraviolet.
Between 2015 and 2020, I accomplished my doctoral studies in the ultraviolet upturn at the Institute of Astronomy, Geophysics, and Atmospheric Sciences at the University of São Paulo. I also did a six-month secondment at the Autonomous University of Madrid in Spain (2018-2019). For the first time, I showed via a Bayesian logistic model that there is a surplus of galaxies harbouring this phenomenon at redshift ~0.25. I also showed that galaxies presenting strong UV tend to be more massive, older, and metal-rich when compared to their weak UV-emitting counterparts.
Since 2021, I have been a post-doctoral researcher at the Nicolaus Copernicus Astronomical Center in Warsaw, Poland, working with Galactic Archaeology.
My main lines of research include galaxy evolution, resolved and unresolved stellar populations, galactic archaeology, and astrostatistics. I am part of several collaborations, including the Cosmostatistics Initiative (COIN) and the Gaia-ESO Survey.