Headshot of Courtney Carreira

Courtney Carreira

(she/her)


PhD Student
University of California, Santa Cruz
ccarreir@ucsc.edu



About Me

I am an observational astronomer, with a particular interest in the structural evolution of galaxies across cosmic time.

I am a third-year PhD student at the University of California, Santa Cruz, in the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics. Currently, I’m working with Professor Brant Robertson in the UCSC Computational Astrophysics group, using data from the JWST Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey (JADES) to study galaxy morphology and evolution. In particular, I analyze the surface brightness profiles of galaxies across a wide range of redshifts, using GPU-enabled Markov chain Monte Carlo methods to maximize on statistical robustness while maintaining computational efficiency.

I earned my Master of Science in Astronomy & Astrophysics from UCSC in June 2025, and my Bachelor of Science in Physics, with a minor in Applied Mathematics & Statistics, from Johns Hopkins University in May 2023.

In my free time, I enjoy cooking and baking - along the way, I’m digitizing all of my family’s old recipes from Cuba!

Publications

  1. JWST Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey (JADES) Data Release 5: Catalogs of inferred morphological properties of galaxies from JWST/NIRCam imaging in GOODS-N and GOODS-S
    Courtney Carreira, Brant E. Robertson, A. Lola Danhaive, Zhiyuan Ji, Marcia Rieke, et al.
    arXiv e-prints, January 2026.
    PDF BibTex
  2. Earliest Galaxies in the JADES Origins Field: Luminosity Function and Cosmic Star Formation Rate Density 300 Myr after the Big Bang
    Brant Robertson, Benjamin D. Johnson, Sandro Tacchella, et al., including Courtney Carreira
    The Astrophysical Journal, July 2024.
    PDF Source Press BibTex
  3. Beyond the stars: Linking Hα sizes, kinematics, and star formation in galaxies at z ≈ 4 - 6 with JWST grism surveys and GEKO
    A. Lola Danhaive, Sandro Tacchella, William McClymont, et al., including Courtney Carreira
    Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, March 2026.
    PDF Source BibTex
  4. Clump-like Structures in High-Redshift Galaxies: Mass Scaling and Radial Trends from JADES
    Yongda Zhu, Marcia J. Rieke, Zhiyuan Ji, Andrew J. Bunker, Courtney Carreira, et al.
    arXiv e-prints, January 2026.
    PDF Press BibTex
  5. JWST Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey (JADES) Data Release 5: Photometrically Selected Galaxy Candidates at z > 8
    Kevin N. Hainline, Daniel J. Eisenstein, Lily Whitler, et al., including Courtney Carreira
    arXiv e-prints, January 2026.
    PDF BibTex

Courtney Carreira during her iPoster presentation at the AAS Winter Meeting in January 2023. She is wearing a white and black striped sweater, and gesturing at the screen behind her which displays her iPoster. Courtney gesturing wildly at presenting her iPoster at the AAS Winter Meeting in January 2023, in Seattle, WA. (Photo by © CorporateEventImages/Todd Buchanan 2023.)

In the Press

I was featured in “Catching Ancient Stars Beyond Space and Time” by Chiara Villanueva, a graduate of the Science Communication Master’s Program at UC Santa Cruz. This project included a podcast interview, “Conducting Science with the James Webb Space Telescope as an Early-Career Researcher”.

You can hear me, and many other astronomers, describe the impact of the James Webb Space Telescope on studies of the universe in this video, “The James Webb Space Telescope Reveals the Early Universe”, put together by the Space Telescope Science Institute.

Contact

Email: ccarreir@ucsc.edu

Office: Interdisciplinary Sciences Building, Office 291

Mailing Address:
    Courtney Carreira
    MS: UCO / Lick Observatory
    1156 High Street
    Santa Cruz, CA 95060

Looking for a fun galaxies-related activity? I’m a huge fan of http://mygalaxies.co.uk/, which lets you write any text message in real SDSS galaxy images!

SDSS galaxis spelling out 'hello world'.