{"id":4238,"date":"2025-10-06T12:33:49","date_gmt":"2025-10-06T16:33:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/oge.mit.edu\/msrp\/?post_type=profiles&#038;p=4238"},"modified":"2025-12-09T11:19:04","modified_gmt":"2025-12-09T16:19:04","slug":"amir-abdulgadir","status":"publish","type":"profiles","link":"https:\/\/oge.mit.edu\/msrp\/profiles\/amir-abdulgadir\/","title":{"rendered":"Amir Abdulgadir"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignleft size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2560\" height=\"2560\" src=\"https:\/\/oge.mit.edu\/msrp\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2025\/10\/Abdulgadir-Amir-edited-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-4245\" style=\"width:200px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/oge.mit.edu\/msrp\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2025\/10\/Abdulgadir-Amir-edited-scaled.jpg 2560w, https:\/\/oge.mit.edu\/msrp\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2025\/10\/Abdulgadir-Amir-edited-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/oge.mit.edu\/msrp\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2025\/10\/Abdulgadir-Amir-edited-1024x1024.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/oge.mit.edu\/msrp\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2025\/10\/Abdulgadir-Amir-edited-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/oge.mit.edu\/msrp\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2025\/10\/Abdulgadir-Amir-edited-768x768.jpg 768w, https:\/\/oge.mit.edu\/msrp\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2025\/10\/Abdulgadir-Amir-edited-1536x1536.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/oge.mit.edu\/msrp\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2025\/10\/Abdulgadir-Amir-edited-2048x2048.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p><strong>MIT Department: <\/strong>Physics<br><strong>Faculty Mentor<\/strong>: Prof. Lina Necib<br><strong>Research Supervisor: <\/strong>Nathaniel Starkman, Zeineb Mezghanni<br><strong>Undergraduate Institution:<\/strong> Howard University<br><strong>Website<\/strong>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:0px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Biography<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>Amir Abdulgadir is a Karsh STEM Scholar at Howard University studying astrophysics.His passion for research started one night in 2019 while staring up at the stars, where a floodof questions pushed him to start learning everything he could about the universe. He got hisfirst taste of research in a stable isotope lab at Portland State University, working with CO2analyzers and exploring how science can influence real-world change. He\u2019s now studyingone-on-one with Dr. Lindesay, founder of the Computational Physics Lab, where he\u2019s learninggeneral relativity, causality, and quantum phenomena. Amir\u2019s research interests includeaccretion disks, stellar remnants, and the mechanics behind relativistic jets. Inspired by hisEthiopian heritage and his mom\u2019s words to \u201caim high,\u201d he\u2019s focused on asking better questions,following his curiosity, and contributing meaningful work to the scientific community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Abstract<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\"><strong>Understanding Dark Matter Using Stellar Streams<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\"><strong>Amir Abdulgadir<sup>1<\/sup>, Nathaniel Starkman<sup>2<\/sup>, Zeineb Mezghanni<sup>2<\/sup>, and Lina Necib<sup>2<\/sup><\/strong><br><sup>1<\/sup>Department of Physics and Astronomy, Howard University<br><sup>2<\/sup>Department of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The nature and properties of dark matter (DM) remain among the most fundamental unanswered questions in astrophysics. This project focuses on using stellar streams, faint, elongated structures formed when smaller satellite systems are tidally disrupted by the gravitational forces of a larger host galaxy, to map the invisible gravitational potential shaped by dark matter. While the Milky Way has been studied before in depth, few projects connect high-resolution extragalactic observational data to direct constraints on dark matter halo properties. This research aims to fill that gap using a targeted and systematic approach. After sorting deep-space images from the European Space Agency\u2019s Euclid mission and identifying galaxies that exhibit stellar streams, a galaxy modeling tool is used that isolates the faint stream by subtracting the dominant light of the host galaxy. Morphological features such as the stream\u2019s trajectory, width, and surface brightness profile are then extracted and analyzed. From this, constraints can be placed on the mass and shape of the host galaxy\u2019s total mass distribution. Building from my work modeling the luminous galaxy, we can subtract the baryons from the total to find the mass and shape of the dark matter distribution itself. \n\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":4245,"template":"","profile_category":[23],"class_list":["post-4238","profiles","type-profiles","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","profile_category-2025-interns"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/oge.mit.edu\/msrp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/profiles\/4238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/oge.mit.edu\/msrp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/profiles"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/oge.mit.edu\/msrp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/profiles"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/oge.mit.edu\/msrp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/profiles\/4238\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4770,"href":"https:\/\/oge.mit.edu\/msrp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/profiles\/4238\/revisions\/4770"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oge.mit.edu\/msrp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/oge.mit.edu\/msrp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"profile_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oge.mit.edu\/msrp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/profile_category?post=4238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}