James "Jimmy" Negus
Chance Irick Cooke Endowed Fellowship in Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences

Under the supervision of Dr. Julie Comerford and Dr. Francisco Müller Sánchez, I currently analyze Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) utilizing the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), a major multi-spectral imaging and spectroscopic redshift survey compiled using a dedicated 2.5 meter wide-angle optical telescope at Apache Point Observatory in New Mexico.

Specifically, I analyze galactic spectra in the SDSS's Mapping Nearby Galaxies at APO (MaNGA) catalog, which consists of 10,000 galaxies observed with Integral Field Unit (IFU) spectroscopy. Within the MaNGA catalog, I identify high ionization and broad lines emission signatures, which are characteristic features of AGN, to determine the number of AGN within the sample.

Future work will explore the kinematics of outflows among the sample of confirmed AGN.