Biography:
Gustavo Cruz was born in Colombia, Santiago de Cali in 1985. He completed his bachelor in physics in 2009 at University of Valle. In 2010, he was granted a scholarship to begin his studies in astrophysics at Autonomous University of Madrid in Spain. He started a master and a PhD at the same time, finishing the first one in 2012 and the second in 2014. His PhD was focused on laboratory astrophysics under the direction of Dr. Guillermo M. Muñoz Caro, and it was developed in the laboratory facilities at Astrobiology Center (Centro de Astrobiología – CAB, in Spanish) in Torrejón de Ardoz. Here, he learned about ultraviolet and infrared spectroscopy and mass spectrometry techniques. He applied this knowledge to the study of interstellar ice analogues under ultra-high-vacuum conditions and was honored with a cum laude distinction for his PhD thesis.
After graduation, he worked in Netherlands as a postdoctoral fellow at Leiden University with the astrochemistry and astrophysics laboratory under the supervision of Prof. Harold Linnartz (from 2014 to 2015).
Currently, he is a postdoctoral fellow at BAER Institute working with Dr. Andrew L. Mattioda and Dr. Scott Sandford at NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, USA. His main research topic is the interactions of interstellar dust analogues and PAHs under high vacuum conditions and ultraviolet irradiation to study the catalysis process in stellar and planet formation scenarios.
He likes movies, photography and image processing, reading books, riding his bike, and walking on the beach. What he missed the most from Colombia is his family and the amazing gastronomy.
Gustavo's major publications can be found on the Astrochemistry Laboratory's Publications Pages.
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