Welcome! I am an assistant professor at the Physics and Astronomy department at the Univ of California Los Angeles. As the title suggests, I am fascinated by things that are a few tens to billions of light-years away, and I use nanometer-scale wavelengths and nanoscale devices to study them! Currently, I am developing on-chip integrated astrophotonic spectrographs to measure cosmic dynamics from exoplanets and their atmospheres to distant galaxies. This cutting-edge technology allows us to massively miniaturize astronomical spectrometers, from the size of a room to the size of a shoebox! This is especially relevant in the era of Extremely Large Telescopes (ELTs), where the volume of the spectrometer scales with the cube of the telescope diameter. The applications of this versatile instrumentation range from astronomy and planetary missions to biological analysis and mining!
I also explore high redshift Gamma Ray Bursts (GRBs) to probe the conditions in the early universe, when exciting things like vigorous star formation, outflows, and reionization of the universe were taking place.
To study these phenomena, we examine the absorption spectra of GRB afterglows and uncover important information about GRB's host galaxy,
the circumgalactic medium (CGM) and intergalactic medium (IGM).
Opportunities for students and postdocs:
We are looking for motivated undergrad/grad students and postdocs to work on developing innovative astrophotonic instrumentation in our lab.
Interested students and postdocs from Optics/Photonics, Astronomy, Physics, and Engineering backgrounds are welcome to contact Dr. Gatkine.
New postdoc opportunity: We are hiring a postdoc in Astrophotonic instrumentation. An astronomy background is not necessary, but certainly a plus. Interested? Please apply! More info here.