Eric Koch
I'm a Research Officer at DRAO/Herzberg working on the Canadian SKA regional centre. I research how matter in interstellar space accumulates to form stars and support open-source software for the radio astronomy community.
Research
I explore the intricate relationship between the interstellar medium, star formation, and feedback and its role in how galaxies evolve.
My research links the properties of the interstellar medium (ISM) from large scales measured in extragalactic sources to the small scales observed within the Milky Way. Linking large and small ISM scales offers insight into many key open questions about the role of the ISM and star formation in galaxy evolution, including: How is interstellar turbulence driven? How do molecular clouds form? What role does the atomic ISM play in the evolution of molecular clouds?
You can find my publications on ADS here
The neutral ISM resolved across the Local Group
Morphology of molecular clouds across the Local Volume
Modeling ISM structure: turbulence and galactic structure
Community, Software & Code
A major component of my work includes community support and development of open-source software. Alongside my research developing novel analysis methods, I provide open-source tools to enable their broader use in the community. Since 2014, I have co-developed the radio-astro-tools packages and tutorial series, bringing support for radio spectral-line data cube with the astropy ecosystem. From 2023-2025, I was the Director of Seamless Astronomy at the Center for Astrophysics.
Check my Github profile for a full list of projects.
TurbuStat: Turbulence Statistics for Astronomical Data
spectral-cube: Parallelized operations for massive radio data cubes with astropy and dask
FilFinder: Filament identification and analysis in python
radio-beam Optimized operations for 2D Gaussian beams with astropy
uvcombine: Combination of high- and low-resolution images
pvextractor: Position-velocity slices with flexible path selection
PHANGS imaging pipeline: Staging and imaging for large interferometric data sets.
LGLBS Processing Pipeline Automated processing and interactive visualizations for VLA L-band observations
Surveys and Data Releases
LGLBS
The Local Group L-band Survey
The deepest, highest spatial and velocity resolution imaging imaging to date of 21-cm line and L-band continuum emission over the full area of the six actively star-forming Local Group galaxies visible to the VLA - M31 (Andromeda), M33 (Triangulum), NGC 6822, IC 10, IC 1613, and WLM.
Team website with links to data releases: lglbs.org
Pre-LGLBS VLA HI data release from Koch et al. 2018: 20 arcsec VLA HI, OH, and Hydrogen RRLs of M33
PHANGS
Physics at High Angular resolution in Nearby GalaxieS
Team website with links to data releases: phangs.org
Including upcoming high-quality VLA HI observations from a new Large Program (26A-247)!
sSCALES
Spatially-resolved Star-forming Complexes Across Local Extragalactic Systems
Combining JWST and ALMA survey the molecular gas and young stellar populations in four of the nearest, best-studied star-forming galaxies on <10 pc scales: NGC 253 (Sculptor), NGC 300, NGC 5236 (M83), and NGC 7793.
Observations in progress!
SMAAT
The SMA Andromeda Treasury
SMA large/technical project (2024B-S057): 10 pc OTF CO(2-1) mapping of M31's complete star-forming disc.
Observations in progress!
Data hosted by the Canadian Advanced Network for Astronomical Research (CANFAR) and the Harvard Dataverse( at )https://dataverse.harvard.edu/).
About Me
I'm from Western Canada, where I completed my BSc at UBC-Okanagan, and MSc and PhD at the University of Alberta. I was an SMA and NSERC Fellow at the Center for Astrophysics from Fall 2020 to Spring 2025, and an ngVLA Assistant Scientist at NRAO from Spring 2025-2026.
I enjoy hockey, hiking in the mountains, and occasionally climbing rocks.