Rate My Professor Preethi Nair

Preethi Nair is an Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Recruiting and Admissions in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at The University of Alabama, a position she has held since joining the faculty in January 2014. She obtained her doctoral degree in Astronomy from the University of Toronto in 2009. As a multi-wavelength observational astronomer, Nair's research investigates the formation and evolution of galaxies through large-scale surveys. Her academic interests encompass visual and quantitative classifications of galaxy morphologies, the comparative influences of major mergers and secular evolution—particularly the roles of bars, rings, and spiral arms—in driving star formation histories, as well as the activity of supermassive black holes manifested as active galactic nuclei (AGN). She specializes in data mining techniques applied to extensive astronomical datasets to trace galactic evolution across cosmic time.

Nair plays a pivotal role in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey IV (SDSS-IV) MaNGA survey as science co-chair, which delivers integral field unit spectroscopy for over 10,000 nearby galaxies, enabling detailed studies of their star formation, mass assembly, and dynamical processes. Her contributions extend to characterizing the structural growth in galaxies, including bulges, bars, rings, and spiral arms, and evaluating their effects on mass distribution, metallicity gradients, star formation rates, and AGN triggering mechanisms. She also explores black hole occupation fractions to refine models of supermassive black hole growth. Collaborating with faculty such as Jimmy Irwin on galaxy interactions and AGN evolution, and Jeremy Bailin on stellar populations and globular clusters, Nair has supervised postdocs, graduate students—including Wenhao Li, Kavya Mukundan, Nirmal Baral, Sunil Laudari, and Chris Spradlin—and numerous undergraduates like Carlisle Wishard. Notable publications include "Automating galaxy morphology classification using k-nearest neighbours" (MNRAS, 2024), "A Multiwavelength Study of Active Galactic Nuclei in Post-merger Remnants" (ApJ, 2023), "Post-starburst properties of post-merger galaxies" (MNRAS, 2023), and contributions to SDSS data releases. Nair organizes professional meetings and has developed practical tools for virtual collaborations, such as timed video indicators for Zoom meetings. She was a candidate for the USNC/IAU in 2021.