Andrew Saydjari
Education
2024 - PhD - Physics - Harvard
2018 - MSc - Chemistry - Yale
2018 - BSc - Mathematics - Yale
I will be starting as faculty in August 2026 and would be excited to talk with any students interested in joining the research group.
Research
My research focuses on combining astrophysics, statistics, and high-performance coding to study the spatial, kinematic, and chemical variations in the dust that permeates the Milky Way. That is, I try to understand interstellar dust in terms of where it is, how it is moving, and what it is made of. This dust is an important building block in matter assembly (formation of stars and planets), driver of the interstellar environment, and Galactic foreground. To do this, I use spectroscopic and imaging surveys containing millions and billions of stars, respectively.
I believe knowledge comes from data, and data comes from instruments- a view that shapes my approach to research. At my core, I am a data scientist who tries to deeply understand the instruments I work with. Currently, I am most excited about data coming from APOGEE (SDSS-V), SPHEREx, and JWST and am looking forward to data from Roman and PRIMA.
Publications
My papers can be found on ADS/SciX, though citations outside of astronomy are missing.