Results of my research in microwave spectroscopy applied to astrochemistry. – Resultados de mi investigación en espectroscopia de microondas aplicadas a la astroquímica

The Team

We are a small part of the Group of Spectroscopy of Plasmas and Supersonic Jets or Grupo de Espectroscopía de Plasmas y Chorros Supersónicos (GEPCS) team at the Universidad de Valladolid. Our members include:

  • Dr. Amanda L. Steber
  • Wenqin Li
  • Farha Sajeev

We are working in parallel with Dr. Jose Cernicharo the head of the Molecular Astrophysics group at the Instituto de Física Fundamental de Madrid (CSIC).

A little bit more about us:

  • Dr. Alberto Lesarri is the head of the GEPCS group and received a
    PhD in Chemistry in 1991. He then became a Full professor of Physical chemistry at the UVA in 2012. He served as Head of the Department from 2014-18 and has been currently active as the head since 2023. Prof. Lesarri has wide, extensive, and well-documented expertise in gas-phase structural investigations of biomolecules and weakly-bound intermolecular complexes. His research activities have been focused on developing new knowledge and technologies in the field of microwave and millimeter-wave spectroscopy, and he is interested in studying intermolecular interactions in molecular complexes, especially those that contain sulfur.

  • Dr. Amanda Steber is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Action Individual fellow who started her stay at UVa in Oct. 2021. Before that, she completed her PhD at the University of Virginia in 2014 under the direction of Dr. Brooks H. Pate. Her PhD was centered around broadband microwave instrument development and astrochemistry research. Following her PhD, she was awarded with a Louise Johnson fellow at the Centre for Ultrafast Imaging at the University of Hamburg in Hamburg, Germany. There, she focused on using her expertise to help start an astrochemistry line in the group of Dr. Melanie Schnell, and she continued innovating new instruments for microwave spectroscopy studies. As a MSCA fellow she is working on developing discharge instrumentation at UVa with the hopes of investigating sulfur containing species and polycyclic hydrocarbons that are of interstellar interest.

  • Wenqin Li is a PhD student who started her tenure in the GEPCS group in 2021. In conjunction to helping with the projects for AstroSsearch, she is interested in studying intermolecular interactions of molecular complexes.

  • Farha Sajeev is a PhD student co-directed by Dr. Cristobal Perez and myself who joined the team in Sept. 2023. She has been been working on different aspects of the AstroSsearch project, along with looking at other sulfur containing species.