Howdy, I am Diego Alberto Garza ! I am currently a graduate student pursuing an astrophysics PhD at the University of California at Santa Cruz. I plan to work with Professor Brant Robertson to study the Epoch of Reionization using cosmological simulations powered on GPUs (Cholla).
I graduated from the University of Chicago in June 2023 with a BA in Physics and BS in Astronomy & Astrophysics. I worked with Professor Andrey Kravtsov and Professor Susmita Adhikari to study the splashback radius of cluster-sized dark matter halos in cosmological simulations. I further expanded on this research to complete a bachelor honors thesis. I also worked within the COOL-LAMPS collaboration to study strongly gravitationally lensed galaxies. The summer before my senior year, I completed an astronomy research internship under the TAURUS program at the University of Texas at Austin studying Hypervelocity Stars with Professor Keith Hawkins and Tyler Nelson.
I was born and raised in Houston, Texas and went to school in Aldine ISD, where I graduated with my associates degree from an early college high school. Outside of research, I’m a huge Houston Dynamo and Houston Astros fan, and like to watch and play soccer. I also enjoy watching and reading science fiction, working on jigsaw puzzles, and smoking brisket.
