I'm a Brazilian astrophysicist working on multi-disciplinary topics related to galaxy formation and evolution.
As a paleontologist, I inspect the fossil record imprinted on galaxy spectra, to investigate the stellar formation and mass assembly history of galaxies.
I adopt an ecological approach to study galaxy evolution: in short, galaxies evolve through a nature via nurture process, with the surrounding environment being a relevant character in this scenario.
Galaxies, as insects or birds, can be conveniently agrouped in distinct "classes" of objects containing similar properties. This procedure gives origin to a galaxy taxonomy research. I tipically study galaxies classified according to their emission line properties or physical properties, and how different are the evolutionary paths followed by each class of galaxies.
Finally, all the analysis I do depend on the ability of mining large databases containing astronomical information for thousands of galaxies. So, all in all, I am a common "garimpeiro"!