Dr. Natalia Lahén is a computational astrophysicist specialising in star clusters in the context of formation and evolution of galaxies. Her numerical simulations in the Galaxy Realizations Including Feedback From INdividual massive stars (GRIFFIN) project have explored how star clusters and their high mass stars form and evolve as a part of various galactic ecosystems. Her hydrodynamical simulations incorporate state-of-the-art models for stellar evolution and gravitational dynamics which makes them ideal for studying clustered star formation in extreme environments such as starburst and high-redshift galaxies. Natalia received her PhD in 2020 from University of Helsinki, Finland, under the supervision of Prof. Peter H. Johansson, after which she has been awarded a postdoctoral research fellowship at the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics in Garching and the Gliese Fellowship at the Astronomisches Rechen-Institut in Heidelberg. She is specifically interested in uncovering the origin of globular star clusters and their mysterious stellar populations in the high-redshift Universe using high-resolution hydrodynamical simulations, for which she was awarded an ERC Starting Grant in 2025.

Research interests:

- Star clusters
- Star formation
- Galaxy formation and evolution
- Massive stars
- Numerical methods

Contact Address:

Dr. Natalia Lahén
MPI für Astrophysik
P.O. Box 1317
85741 Garching, Germany

E-Mail: nlahen @ mpa-garching.mpg.de
Phone:+49-89-30000-0