My research focuses on galaxy evolution through the study of the interstellar medium (ISM), combining observational and theoretical approaches. I work at the interface of multi-wavelength observations—primarily from ALMA-with the development of galaxy formation models, often coupled to radiative transfer tools, to understand how galaxies acquire, process, and expel their baryonic content over cosmic time. I specifically focus on the interplay between gas, dust, metals and star formation in galaxies at cosmic noon, how dust absorps and reprocesses light, and the usage of atomic and molecular emission lines as tracers of the cold ISM properties in galaxies.
Science Highlights
- Predictions for dust content of galaxies over cosmic time based on a cosmological simulation (Popping et al. (2017))
- Observational constraints on the dust-to-gas ratio of galaxies as a function of their metallicity over cosmic time (Popping et al. (2023),Popping et al. (2022))
- Predictions for the atomic and molecular hydrogen content of galaxies from cosmological simulations over time and comparisons to ALMA data (Popping et al. (2014),Popping et al. (2019))
- Atomic and molecular emission line predictions for galaxies over cosmic time based on the coupling of line radiative transfer models to cosmological simulations (Popping et al. (2016),Popping et al. (2019),Garcia et al. (2024),Anirudh et al. (2025))
- The impact of dust geometry on the appearance of galaxies in a multiwavelength perspective (Popping et al. (2022),Popping et al. (2017),Popping et al. (2020),Langan et al. (2024),Killi et al. (2024))
- Observational constraints on the ISM properties of cosmic noon galaxies from CO and [CI] emission lines (Popping et al. (2017),Boogaard et al. (2020))
- Faint line identification in interferometric data (van Marrewijk et al. (2025),Kaasinen et al. (2023))
- co-PI of the ALMA Chemical Evolution (ACE) survey Large Program