Justin Spilker

Justin Spilker is an Assistant Professor of Astronomy at Texas A&M University since 2022, affiliated with the Mitchell Institute for Fundamental Physics & Astronomy. His research focuses on galaxy evolution, particularly the quenching mechanisms of star formation in galaxies and the role of galactic winds and gravitational lensing. He uses multiwavelength observations from facilities like ALMA, VLA, Hubble, and JWST.

Education: PhD in Astronomy & Astrophysics (2017, University of Arizona); Postdoctoral fellowships at University of Texas at Austin (2017-2022) as NASA Hubble Fellow and Harlan J. Smith Fellow.

Research interests include: gravitational lensing effects on galaxy observations, metal enrichment in interstellar media, and compact galaxy evolution. His work on detecting molecular outflows in high-redshift galaxies via gravitational lensing, published in Science, is groundbreaking.

Labs/Teams: Leader in the South Pole Telescope Submillimeter Galaxy Collaboration (SPTSMG), TEMPLATES JWST ERS program, and SQuIGGLE Survey. Serves as ALMA and lensing expert in multiple collaborations.

Grants/Advising: Advises students like Wren Suess and David Setton. Data products and code from his projects are publicly available on GitHub.