Dries, Matthijs

University of Groningen

   University of GroningenUnravelling the stellar Initial Mass Function of early-type galaxies with hierarchical BayesianmodellingDries, MatthijsIMPORTANT NOTE: You are advised to consult the publisher's version (publisher's PDF) if you wish to cite fromit. Please check the document version below.Document VersionPublisher's PDF, also known as Version of recordPublication date:2018Link to publication in University of Groningen/UMCG research databaseCitation for published version (APA):Dries, M. (2018). Unravelling the stellar Initial Mass Function of early-type galaxies with hierarchicalBayesian modelling. [Groningen]: Rijksuniversiteit Groningen.CopyrightOther than for strictly personal use, it is not permitted to download or to forward/distribute the text or part of it without the consent of theauthor(s) and/or copyright holder(s), unless the work is under an open content license (like Creative Commons).Take-down policyIf you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediatelyand investigate your claim.Downloaded from the University of Groningen/UMCG research database (Pure): http://www.rug.nl/research/portal. For technical reasons thenumber of authors shown on this cover page is limited to 10 maximum.Download date: 13-11-2019AcknowledgementsAs for many theses, writing this thesis has led to some frustrations nowand then (in particular towards the end). But most of the time, doing aPhD and writing this thesis has been quite an enjoyable experience for me.The work that was presented in this thesis would not have been possiblewithout the help, inspiration and support of many people and in the lastpages of this thesis I would like to express my gratitude to those people.First and foremost, I would like to thank my promotors. Scott andLeon, I have always felt very honored to be your student and both of youhave been a great supervisor to me. I think that the two of you form anexcellent team, and the knowledge and experience that the two of you have,has been perfectly complementary for my project and my development asa scientist. Scott, your inexhaustible knowledge of astronomy and yourcontagious enthusiasm for this branch of science make you a very goodteacher. During these four years (but also before), you have taught me alot about astronomy and being a scientist. Although I will not continue towork in science for now, I will definitively continue to think like a scientistand in that respect some of the things that I learned over the last four yearswill be useful for the rest of my life. As a person, you have always been veryfriendly, patient and understanding, which makes working with you a realpleasure. Leon, during my bachelor and master I always felt that I kind ofunderstood what Bayesian statistics was about. You showed me that I waswrong and in the past four years you have taught me a lot about Bayesianmodel comparison. Now I am again in a position where I think that I kindof understand Bayesian statistics, but based on previous experience I admit244 Acknowledgementsthat there is a nonzero probability that I do not completely understand it.You have always been very critical to my scientific writing and in that wayyou have taught me a lot about writing a paper and presenting my ideasto the scientific community. Your friendliness and sense of humour makeworking with you a very nice experience.Special thanks go out to the members of the XSL team. Alexandre,Ana¨ıs, Anke, Ariane, Jesus, Kristiina, Mariya, Mathieu, Mina, Omar,Patricia, Philippe, Reynier and Yanping, we have shared many telecons andhave met in person during one of the busy weeks in Groningen, Strassbourgor Tenerife. I really enjoyed being part of this team and working togetherwith all of you. Ana¨ıs and Mariya, you allowed me to be a small link in thedata reduction process of XSL where I worked on the telluric corrections ofthe spectra. Thank you for what has been a very enjoyable collaborationfor me. Moreover, I would like to thank the two of you for the interestingscientific and non-scientific conversations that we shared together. Reynier,thank you for always being interested in my work, for asking many questionsand also for being critical to my work.Gergo¨ and Rachel, thank you for working together with me on mysecond scientific paper. Chiara, thanks a lot for the collaboration thatled to Chapter 4 of this thesis, for always being curious about my work andfor sharing your enthusiasm about astronomy and in particular the IMF.Ana¨ıs, Anke, Gergo¨, Gerjon, Judith, Kristiina, Mariya, Shoko and Wouter,I would like to thank you for all the scientific discussions, for sharing yourwork with me and for commenting on my work during the (more or lessregular) weekly group meetings.I am very grateful to the reading committee, Charlie Conroy, ReynierPeletier and Tomasso Treu, for accepting the task to read my thesis.Although office 140 does not exist anymore, I consider myself very luckyto have been sharing this nice office for more than three years with Marisa,Smaran and Wouter. Wouter, I really enjoyed the conversations that wehad and the fact that you are critical about almost everything. I wouldalso like to thank you for your comments on the Dutch summary. Marisa,you have been there during almost the entire course of my PhD and I amvery happy that you have been my office mate for all those years. Thankyou for all the interesting conversations that we shared, for sharing yourexperiences about life in Italy, for always being very friendly to me andshowing your interest in my work and life. Smaran, we did not share an245office for a long time but I have come to know you as a friendly person andwould have been happy to have shared the office for a longer period of time.I would like to thank the Computer Group, Eite, Leon, Martin, Valentinand Wim, for answering my questions and for always quickly solving anysystem-related problems that I encountered. A university can now andthen be quite bureaucratic and I would like to thank the secretaries Christa,Gineke, Gonda, Hennie, Martine and Ramona for making sure that I mostlyhad to worry about my PhD and not about anything else. Lucia, thanksfor showing interest in the progress of my thesis and the search for a newjob in my final year.The Kapteyn Institute has always provided a very pleasant workingenvironment and during my PhD time many different people contributedto the fact that the Kapteyn Institute is such a nice place. I am deliberatelynot going to mention any specific names here, since I will most likely forgetto mention someone. But if you have been at the Kapteyn Institute for thepast four years, you have most likely contributed to making it a nice placeand I would like to thank you for that.I would like to thank my friends Bianca, Cathrin, Erwin, Hessel,Jantine, Karlijn, Lammert, Marcel, Marcel, Merel, Rene´, Renske, Rianne,Rik and Ruud for providing the necessary distraction from my thesis overthe last four years. With some of you, I have spent most of my Wednesdaynights over the last years and sharing a pizza together and playing a gamehas always been a very enjoyable and relaxing moment for me.Aske, Renze, Erwin, Frouke, Gijsbert en Hayo, bedankt voor deopenheid en warmte waarmee ik binnen jullie familie ben ontvangen envoor jullie interesse in mijn onderzoek en mijn leven. Graag wil ik mijnfamilie, Remke, Ida, Alex en Hester bedanken voor de getoonde interesse,ondersteuning en mooie momenten die we samen gedeeld hebben. Susanen Teun, ik waardeer het enorm dat jullie speciaal voor mijn verdedigingzijn teruggekomen van jullie grote reis. Bedankt voor alle leuke dingendie we de afgelopen jaren samen gedaan hebben. Susan, dank voor hetcontroleren van mijn Nederlandse samenvatting. Pap en mam, ik benjullie enorm dankbaar dat jullie ervoor gezorgd hebben dat ik zorgeloos hebkunnen opgroeien, dat jullie altijd vertrouwen hebben gehad in de keuzesdie ik gemaakt heb, voor jullie interesse en voor de geboden ondersteuning.Zonder jullie was deze thesis nooit tot stand gekomen. Lieve, lieve Caroline,wat was het toch fijn dat ik de afgelopen jaren met jou heb mogen delen.Jij bent het beste dat me ooit overkomen is!

Unravelling the stellar Initial Mass Function of early-type galaxies with hierarchical Bayesian modelling

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Unravelling the stellar Initial Mass Function of early-type galaxies with hierarchical Bayesian modelling

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