Profile

• From: La Coruña, ES
• Lives in: San Cristóbal de La Laguna, Tenerife, ES
• Birth date: May 21, 1998
• Position: PhD student at Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias
  
  Professor assistant at Universidad de La Laguna
• Email: daniel.galan@iac.es
  
  danielgalandieguez.astrofisica@gmail.com

I'm Daniel, an astrophysicist from Meirás, a small village on the outskirts of La Coruña, Galicia. I studied Physics at the Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, where I graduated with the BSc thesis "Photometric observations of eclipsing binary star systems".

During my undergraduate years, I spent one of them in Tenerife with the SICUE program of the Gobierno de España. That year was really important for my future: it allowed me to take my first classes on Astrophysics, to make my first observations with professional telescopes, and to get in contact with some researchers from the Instituo de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC).

After these SICUE year I was fully convince that I wanted to continue studying astronomy, so in 2021 I decided to move to San Cristóbal de La Laguna (Tenerife), where I started my master studies in Astrophysics. They were a two years of hard study, which were rewarded with the highest possible mark in my MSc thesis "Physical parameters of the low-mass eclipsing binary system ASAS J052919-1617.3".

During my MSc studies I started as a member of the MusCAT2 team, being part of the observation group in the 1.52 m Carlos Sánchez telescope. MuSCAT2 is an instrument which allows simultaneous photometry of exoplanets in different filters.

Actually I'm a PhD student in the Physical Properties and Evolution of Massive Stars group, at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC). My work is about the study of the rotational properties of massive stars, which define the different evolutionary channels and fates (supernovae or black holes) of the OB-type stars.

I'm focus in the lack of fast rotators in Cygnus OB2, one of the most active star-forming regions in our Galaxy. My analysis of single/multiple systems, mergers and runaways will confirm or reject the existence of fast rotators in Cygnus OB2, and the need to modify present-day stellar evolutionary models and the interaction mechanisms between massive stars.

Complementary to my PhD, I'm a professor assistant at the Universidad de La Laguna. In 2023, I was part of the 'Basic observational techniques' subject (MSc level), where we covered the basic concepts of astronomical observations and photometry, and IRAF is introduced for the processing and science of photometric data.

For a more detailed description of my life as an astrophysics researcher click on the following button, where you can find my CV.