Dr Alex Richings

Dr Alex Richings

Lecturer in Data Science, Artificial Intelligence and Modelling

Faculty and Department

  • Faculty of Science and Engineering
  • Data Science AI and Modelling Centre (DAIM)

Qualifications

  • PhD / DPhil (Leiden university)

Summary

I was appointed as a Lecturer in the Centre for Data Science, Artificial Intelligence and Modelling (DAIM) and the E. A. Milne Centre for Astrophysics at the University of Hull in November 2022.

Previously, I was a Postdoctoral Research Associate and Teaching Fellow at the Institute for Computational Cosmology, Durham University (2018 - 2022), and a Lindheimer postdoctoral fellow at Northwestern University (2016 - 2018). Prior to that, I completed my Ph.D. in Astrophysics at the University of Leiden under the supervision of Prof. Joop Schaye (2011 - 2015).

I teach the 'Fundamentals of Data Science' module for the MSc course on Artificial Intelligence and Data Science.

Recent outputs

View more outputs

Book Chapter

The interplay between dust and radiation

Richings, A. (2024). The interplay between dust and radiation. In S. Bovino, & T. Grassi (Eds.), Astrochemical Modeling: Practical Aspects of Microphysics in Numerical Simulations (157-188). Amsterdam: Elsevier. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-32-391746-9.00015-8

Journal Article

158 μm emission as an indicator of galaxy star formation rate

Liang, L., Feldmann, R., Murray, N., Narayanan, D., Hayward, C. C., Angles-Alcázar, D., …Hopkins, P. F. (2024). 158 μm emission as an indicator of galaxy star formation rate. Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 528(1), 499-541. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stad3792

Local positive feedback in the overall negative: the impact of quasar winds on star formation in the FIRE cosmological simulations

Mercedes-Feliz, J., Anglés-Alcázar, D., Hayward, C. C., Cochrane, R. K., Terrazas, B. A., Wellons, S., …Kereš, D. (2023). Local positive feedback in the overall negative: the impact of quasar winds on star formation in the FIRE cosmological simulations. Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 524(3), 3446-3463. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stad2079

Hydrodynamic simulations of the disc of gas around supermassive black holes (HDGAS) -I. Molecular gas dynamics

Raouf, M., Viti, S., García-Burillo, S., Richings, A. J., Schaye, J., Bemis, A., …Holdship, J. (2023). Hydrodynamic simulations of the disc of gas around supermassive black holes (HDGAS) -I. Molecular gas dynamics. Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 524(1), 786-800. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stad1957

Rapid disc settling and the transition from bursty to steady star formation in Milky Way-mass galaxies

Gurvich, A. B., Stern, J., Faucher-Giguère, C. A., Hopkins, P. F., Wetzel, A., Moreno, J., …Hafen, Z. (2023). Rapid disc settling and the transition from bursty to steady star formation in Milky Way-mass galaxies. Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 519(2), 2598-2614. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stac3712

Research interests

I use numerical simulations to study the formation and evolution of galaxies. My research particularly focusses on modelling the non-equilibrium chemistry of ions and molecules in these simulations. Chemistry plays an important role in understanding galaxy formation, as observations of galaxies often involve emission and absorption lines from individual chemical species, which trace different gas phases. By modelling the chemical processes that determine the abundances of these species, we can make predictions for these observables from our simulations that we can compare directly to observations. Accurate chemical modelling is also important for understanding how gas cools, as different species radiate away the thermal energy at different rates via transitions between excited states.

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