I'm a PhD candidate in astrophysics at the University of Chicago. My research works toward understanding how galaxies form and evolve with a specific focus on the chemical and physical mechanisms that regulate star formation in the smallest galaxies.
See below for some selected GitHub repos which I own/maintain or to which I have contributed.
🔭 I am invested in open science, so I try to make my code/data/models public:
- avapolzin/CHIMExIllustrisTNG - Analysis code and TNG300 cluster catalogs from Polzin et al. (2024b)
- avapolzin/hydrogen_models - HI-H2 models from Polzin et al. (2024a) and the larger literature
- avapolzin/X-rayLCs - Code and X-ray transient data from Polzin et al. (2023a) + light curve classifier
🔭 I also work on scientific software projects that I hope will be useful to the community:
- fforster/DELIGHT - Host galaxy identification for transient sources (Förster et al. 2022)
- tbmiller-astro/silkscreen - Galaxy distances inferred from survey imaging (Miller et al. 2025)
- avapolzin/spike - All-in-one tool to generate and drizzle space-based PSFs (Polzin 2025)
✨ and sometimes I publish smaller packages for fun (or as relatively simple utilities):
- avapolzin/albumpl - Matplotlib palettes/colormaps based on album covers
- avapolzin/cutout - Cutouts from astronomical survey imaging with minimal user inputs
- avapolzin/rahrah - University-inspired Matplotlib palettes/colormaps
📚 Additionally, I'm very active in instruction and pedagogy, and share some materials on GitHub:
- astroteaching/astroteaching.github.io - Compiled astrophysics teaching resources
- avapolzin/ASTR255_Fall2021 - Beginning coding tutorials for Yale astrophysics majors
- avapolzin/ASTR11901_Summer2025 - Course materials from "Physics of Stars"
- avapolzin/goodenough_gaia_cmds - Simplified member selection and isochrone plotting for Gaia CMDs