Mowla Astro Group

Welcome to my research group site! Our extragalactic group studies the structural evolution of galaxies in the early Universe. We want to undertstand how the star clusters and galaxies formed in the first billions years of the universe, how they co-evolved to lead to the morphological evolution we observe. Our group works with observations from space-based telescopes such as Hubble, JWST, the upcoming Roman, and ground-based facilities including Keck, Gemini, Dragonfly, and ALMA, and cosmological hydrodynamical simulations.

I am an Assistant Professor of Astronomy at Wellesley College and am currently a Visiting Scientist at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian during my sabbatical year. I earned my Ph.D. from Yale University in 2020 under the mentorship of Prof. Pieter van Dokkum. Before joining Wellesley, I was a Dunlap Postdoctoral Fellow at the Dunlap Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of Toronto. I am from Dhaka, Bangladesh and I am an inaugural Associate Member of the Center for Astronomy, Space Science, and Astrophysics at Independent University, Bangladesh, the first astronomy research center in the country.

In addition to our research on galaxy evolution, we work to make astronomy more inclusive and accessible. Our group Mirror is dedicated to uncovering and celebrating the contributions of astronomers throughout history whose stories have been overlooked. In Bangladesh, our outreach initiative Durbin brings the night sky to communities across the country using mobile telescopes.

Research

Artist's representation of the source plane reconstruction of the Firefly Sparkle.

We explore how galaxies have evolved in structure since Cosmic Dawn, using observations to uncover their transformations over time. Recently, much of our research has focused on analyzing new images from the James Webb Space Telescope, providing unprecedented detailed view into the distant universe.

Astronomers are piecing together the story of how galaxies like the Milky Way formed and evolved over time. With JWST acting as a cosmic time machine, we can look billions of years into the past to observe galaxies in their earliest stages. Its high sensitivity, combined with gravitational lensing, allows us to resolve high-redshift galaxies down to individual star clusters. Discoveries like the Sparkler, Earendel, Firefly Sparkle, and Cosmic Gems are already reshaping our understanding of early star formation. In the coming year, we will continue exploring these distant galaxies with JWST, uncovering new details about their structure and evolution.
Astronomers have studied galaxy shapes for centuries, long before the extragalactic universe was known. As early as the 10th century, Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi recorded Andromeda as a "small white cloud," distinguishing it from stars. Today, galaxy morphology remains crucial for understanding their formation and evolution. Defining a galaxy’s size is complex, as it depends on its light, dust, orientation, and measurement method. Our goal is to trace galaxy size evolution across cosmic time, separating observational biases from true growth to better understand how galaxies assemble.
JWST is transforming extragalactic astronomy, uncovering massive early galaxies, high-redshift AGN, and young star clusters. However, most studies focus on extreme cases, leaving much of JWST’s vast dataset underutilized. To address this, we are developing J-HIVE: JWST's Homogeneous Information-Rich Visualization of Extragalactic Datasets. This project will create uniform catalogs of galaxy properties, build an interactive explorer for data visualization, and apply machine learning to map galaxy populations. Using open software and Wellesley HPC, J-HIVE aims to make JWST data more accessible, ensuring researchers worldwide can explore the universe with ease.