Ray Garner

Hello! My name is Ray Garner, and I am a postdoc in the Astronomy Group at Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas. I am an observational astronomer interested in how we use nebular emission lines to understand the physical conditions and evolution of galaxies. These lines let us measure properties such as chemical abundances, ionization, gas temperatures and densities, dust extinction, and kinematics, but interpreting them requires assumptions about the stars, gas, geometry, and environments that produce them. Much of my research asks how well those assumptions hold.

My work spans the nearby Universe to Cosmic Dawn. As a member of the Star formation, Ionized Gas, and Nebular Abundances Legacy Survey (SIGNALS) collaboration, I use spatially resolved spectroscopy of nearby H II regions to study nebular diagnostics, stellar feedback, chemical abundances, and ionized-gas kinematics. I also maintain a long-running research program on the nearby M101 Group, using imaging and integral-field spectroscopy to connect star formation, stellar populations, chemical evolution, spiral structure, and galaxy interactions. More recently, I have extended this work to galaxies in the Epoch of Reionization using JWST/NIRSpec rest-frame UV and optical spectroscopy to investigate extreme nebular conditions and the sources of highly energetic ionizing radiation.

Before coming to Texas A&M, I earned my Ph.D. in Astronomy from Case Western Reserve University, where I worked with Prof. Chris Mihos on the evolution of M101 and its satellite group using deep, wide-field imaging from the Burrell Schmidt telescope. I received my B.S. in Physics, summa cum laude, from Furman University, where I first became involved in astronomical research.