About me

I am an astrophysics researcher with a dedicated focus on galaxy formation and evolution, galaxy clusters, and gravitational lensing, using both observational and theoretical approaches. I employ artificial intelligence in various astrophysics fields, aiming to comprehend the physical processes that drive galaxy evolution and the relationship between galaxy morphology and environment.

Currently, I am a tenure-track researcher at CEFCA (Teruel, Spain) working on spatially resolved galaxy properties and low surface brightness structures. Between 2011 and 2015, I did my PhD at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (Spain) and the Observatoire de Paris (France) on the strong gravitational lensing effect produced by galaxy clusters. Then, I moved to Philadelphia (Pennsylvania, USA), where I spent three years as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Pennsylvania (2016-2019). Back in Spain, between 2018 and 2023, I was a postdoctoral researcher as part of IFCA-CSIC (Santander, Spain), IIIA-CSIC (Barcelona, Spain), IAC (Tenerife, Spain), and Universidad de Valladolid (Valladolid, Spain).

Research

My research focuses on galaxy formation and evolution, galaxy clusters, and gravitational lensing from both observational and theoretical perspectives. I am particularly committed to applying artificial intelligence in various fields of astrophysics.

The overarching aim of my research is to comprehend the physical processes driving galaxy evolution over cosmic time and to understand the relationship between galaxy morphology and environment. This is achieved by studying the structure and morphology of galaxies in a broad redshift range through advanced Machine Learning techniques and the gravitational lensing effect produced by galaxy clusters.

Projects

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Publications

To view my full list of publications, please visit my ADS profile.

  • 2024: Euclid. I. Overview of the Euclid mission; arXiv:2405.13491, submitted to A&A special issue ‘Euclid on Sky’; Euclid Collaboration, Mellier, Y., Abdurro’uf, Acevedo Barroso, J. A., …, Zumalacarregui, M. (20 citations)
  • 2024: Galaxy morphology from z∼6 through the lens of JWST; A&A, 685, A48; M. Huertas-Company, M., K. G. Iyer, E. Angeloudi, …, L. Y. A. Yung (author 9/30, 33 citations)
  • 2024: J-PLUS: Bayesian object classification with a strum of BANNJOS; arXiv:2404.16567, submitted to A&A; del Pino, A., López-Sanjuan, C., Hernán-Caballero, A., …, Vázquez Ramió, H. (author 9/25)
  • 2024: On the nature of disks at high redshift seen by JWST/CEERS with contrastive learning and cosmological simulations; ApJ, 961,51; Vega-Ferrero J., Huertas-Company M., Costantin L., …, Yung L. Y. Aaron (author 1/29, 26 citations)
  • 2024: A Milky Way-like barred spiral galaxy at a redshift of 3; Nature, 623, 7987; Costantin, L., Pérez-González, P. G., Guo, Y., …, Yung L. Y. Aaron (author 31/33, 18 citations)
  • 2023: Identification of tidal features in deep optical galaxy images with convolutional neural networks; MNRAS, 521, 3; Domínguez Sánchez, H., Martin, G., Damjanov, I., … Johnston, K. V. (author 9/17, 13 citations)
  • 2023: Expectations of the Size Evolution of Massive Galaxies at 3 ≤ z ≤ 6 from the TNG50 Simulation: The CEERS/JWST View; ApJ, 946, 71; Costantin L., Pérez-González P. G., Vega-Ferrero J., …, Yung L. Y. Aaron (author 3/19, 21 citations)
  • 2023: CEERS Key Paper. III. The Diversity of Galaxy Structure and Morphology at z = 3-9 with JWST; ApJL, 946, 1; Kartaltepe, J. S., Rose, C. Vanderhoof, B. N., …, Zavala, J. A. (76 citations)
  • 2023: First Look at z > 1 Bars in the Rest-frame Near-infrared with JWST Early CEERS Imaging; ApJL, 945, 1; Guo, Y., Jogee, S., Finkelstein, S. L., …, Wang, W. (author 20/48, 49 citations)
  • 2023: Dusty Starbursts Masquerading as Ultra-high Redshift Galaxies in JWST CEERS Observations; ApJL, 943, 2; Zavala, J. A., Buat, V., Case, C., M., … Wuyts, S. (115 citations)
  • 2023: Lessons learned from the two largest Galaxy morphological classification catalogues built by convolutional neural networks; MNRAS, 518, 2; Cheng, T., Y., Domínguez Sánchez, H., Vega-Ferrero, J., …, Scarpine, V. (author 3/57, 6 citations)
  • 2023: A Long Time Ago in a Galaxy Far, Far Away: A Candidate z ∼ 12 Galaxy in Early JWST CEERS Imaging; ApJL, 940, 2; Finkelstein, S. L., Bagley, M. B., Arrabal Haro, P., …, Zavala, J. A. (257 citations)
  • 2023: A deep learning approach to infer galaxy cluster masses from Planck Compton-y parameter maps; Nature Astronomy, 6; de Andres D., Cui W., Ruppin F., …, Vega-Ferrero J. (author 11/11, 24 citations)
  • 2022: Event Detection and Reconstruction Using Neural Networks in TES Devices: a Case Study for Athena/X-IFU; PASP, 134, 024504; Vega-Ferrero J., Ceballos M. T., Cobo B., Carrera F. J., García P., Puyol-Gruart J. (author 1/6, 1 citation)
  • 2021: Shocks in the stacked Sunyaev-Zel'dovich profiles of clusters - I. Analysis with the Three Hundred simulations; MNRAS, 508, 1777-1787; Baxter E. J., Adhikari S., Vega-Ferrero J., Cui W., Chang C., Jain B., Knebe A. (author 3/7, 29 citations)
  • 2021: Pushing automated morphological classifications to their limits with the Dark Energy Survey; MNRAS, 506, 1927-1943; Vega-Ferrero J., Domínguez Sánchez H., Bernardi M., …, Wilkinson R. D. (author 1/63, 41 citations)
  • 2021: A Deep Learning Approach for Characterizing Major Galaxy Mergers; arXiv:2102.05182, submitted to NeurIPS 2020; Koppula, S., Bapst, V., Huertas-Company, M., …, Back, T. (author 15/18, 8 citations)
  • 2021: Constraining the cross-section of dark matter with giant radial arcs in galaxy clusters; MNRAS, 500, 247-258; Vega-Ferrero J., Dana J. M., Diego J. M., Yepes G., Cui W., Meneghetti M. (author 1/6, 16 citations)
  • 2019: Probability of magnification in the Hubble Frontier Fields clusters; MNRAS, 486, 5414-5429; Vega-Ferrero J., Diego J. M., Bernstein G. M. (author 1/3, 14 citations)
  • 2018: The Three Hundred project: a large catalogue of theoretically modelled galaxy clusters for cosmological and astrophysical applications; MNRAS, 480, 3; Cui, W., Knebe, A., Yepes, G., Welker, C. (author 15/37, 177 citations)
  • 2018: CLUMP-3D: Testing ΛCDM with Galaxy Cluster Shapes; ApJL 860, 1; Sereno, M., Umetsu, K., Ettori, S., …, Zitrin, A. (author 7/8, 38 citations)
  • 2018: Dark Matter under the Microscope: Constraining Compact Dark Matter with Caustic Crossing Events; ApJ 857, 1; Diego, J. M., Kaiser, N., Broadhurst, T., …, Filipenko, A. V. (author 13/15, 111 citations)
  • 2018: A free-form lensing model of A370 revealing stellar mass dominated BCGs, in Hubble Frontier Fields images; MNRAS, 473, 4; Diego, J. M., Schmidt, K. B., Broadhurst, T., …, Ford, H. (author 5/12, 38 citations)
  • 2018: The Hubble Constant from SN Refsdal; ApJL, 853, L31; Vega-Ferrero J., Diego J. M., Miranda V., Bernstein G. M. (author 1/4, 43 citations)
  • 2017: On the shape of dark matter haloes from MultiDark Planck simulations; MNRAS, 467, 3226-3238; Vega-Ferrero J., Yepes G., Gottlöber S. (author 1/3, 49 citations)
  • 2016: The Detection and Statistics of Giant Arcs behind CLASH Clusters; ApJ, 817, 2; Xu, B., Postman, M., Meneghetti, M., …, Koekemoer, A. (author 12/13, 21 citations)
  • 2015: CLASH: The Concentration-Mass Relation of Galaxy Clusters; ApJ, 806, 1; Merten, J., Meneghetti, M., Postman, M., …, Zheng, W. (author 40/41, 222 citations)
  • 2014: The MUSIC of CLASH: Predictions on the Concentration-Mass Relation; ApJ, 797, 34; Meneghetti M., Rasia E., Vega J., …, Zitrin A. (author 3/45, 124 citations)
  • 2013: CLASH: The Enhanced Lensing Efficiency of the Highly Elongated Merging Cluster MACS J0416.1-2403; ApJL, 762, 2; Zitrin, A., Meneghetti, M., Umetsu, K., …, Zheng, W. (author 23/24, 169 citations)