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Below are main areas of my research expertise. Please get in touch if you are interested in any of the topics or if you would like to chat about them!
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I am PI of the projects "DUSTY GIANTS" supported by NCN SONATA starting grant and "UNDUST" supported by NAWA. If you would like to collaborate on these projects, I would be more than happy to discuss with you! Please find more info here.
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I am PI and co-PI of several observing programs investigating dust in diverse galaxy populations in the deep field, e.g., (i) ALMA Cycle 11 program on dust and CO emission in quiescent galaxies; (ii) NOEMA and GEMINI program on dust/CO vs. stellar emission in protoclusters, and (iii) jWST program on warm dust and gas in bright cluster galaxies (PI: A. Man, UBC, Vancouver).
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From 2023 I am a part of large scientific consortium LSST. Vera C. Rubin Observatory is expected to start its operations in 2025. Together with the Euclid space telescope it will provide the widest view of our Universe.
List of published works
MY RESEARCH AREAS
1. Formation & evolution of distant, dusty galaxies
Bulk of my research focuses on galaxy formation and evolution. In other words, I am curious about the life of galaxies in our Universe, from the earliest cosmic times after the Big Bang to the present day.
In particular, I am interested to understand the nature of the most luminous galaxies enriched with dust and molecular gas, so-called dusty star-forming galaxies. Since their initial discovery 25 years ago, these distant and massive objects posses the serious challenge to astronomers questioning how could such large and dusty "giants" have been produced so early in the Universe.
In my research, I unite observational and theoretical methods in order to tackle some of big open questions, such as: how the dust, gas and metals in galaxies evolve over cosmic time. In Donevski et al. A&A 2020, we analysed more than 300 galaxies observed with ALMA and interpreted our findings by applying several state-of-the-art cosmological models. Our research provided the first strong observational evidence of a double origin of dust in distant galaxies. That is to say, we showed that supernovae cannot be only production sources of galaxy dust, and they need to be complemented by the quick rise of dust grains in the interstellar medium!
From Donevski et al. A&A 2020:
Observed evolution of the dust-to-stellar mass ratio in 300 distant dusty galaxies. The distant galaxies are identified with ALMA in the COSMOS field.
2. Galaxy environments: simulations & observations
Today we know that clusters of galaxies are largest virialised structures in an observable Universe. However, while local clusters are well explored systems, this is not the case with their more distant progenitors. The recent theoretical models suggests that so-called protoclusters may have dominated star-formation history in the first two billion of years of cosmic time. Because of this, it is crucial to quantify how different physical properties (e.g. mass of gas, metals and dust) evolve as a function of environments over cosmic time. The NCN supported project "Dusty Giants" for which I am a PI, will give answer to this question.
Previously, as part of my doctoral work, I investigated how the most extreme infrared galaxies (so-called "500-micron risers") trace protoclusters (Donevski, PhD thesis, Donevski et al. in prep.). By creating simulated maps using different models, I found that these extreme dusty galaxies are common in distant overdensities of galaxies. The method I developed was applied to identify dust obscured galaxies clustered in some of the most distant protocluster discovered so far (z>6, Harikane et al. ApJ 2019).
Simulated small-scale environments of 500-micron risers at z>3. This example shows that physical associations of distant galaxies in protoclusters influence observed infrared flux with Herschel instrument.
(Donevski, PhD Thesis)
Spectroscopically confirmed member galaxies of the most distant protocluster at z=6.67 (Harikane et al. 2019).
3. Selection and statistical properties of dust obscured, massive galaxies at very high-redshifts (z>4)
I explore how to understand the statistical properties of distant and massive (and dusty) galaxies selected from the large extragalactic fields. In the recent past, the big part of my work was concerned with a comprehensive analysis of statistics and nature of candidate very distant (z > 4) population of sources identified with infrared/sub-mm telescopes such as Herschel, SCUBA-2 and IRAM.
In Donevski et al. A&A 2018, I presented the new technique which combines observational and theoretical techniques to select galaxies at very high-redshifts. As a result of this work, I offered to the community a catalogues of 100+ dusty galaxies behind the Virgo cluster. These galaxies reside in high-redshifts and are some of the most luminous, non-lensed star-forming systems known in the Universe.
Redshift properties of more than 100 candidate z>4 dusty galaxies identified with a novel method presented in Donevski et al. 2018.
4. Evolution of interstellar medium in quiescent galaxies
Recent discoveries of dust and molecular gas in quiescent galaxies (QGs) up to z ∼ 7 challenge the long-standing view that the interstellar medium depletes rapidly once star formation ceases, raising key questions of whether dust and gas coevolve in QGs, and how their depletion links to stellar aging. My recent works helped the emergance of this new field in galaxy evolution: interstellar medium in quiescent galaxies. With my group, we recently published a series of studies, both observational and theoretical, characterising the population of ISM-rich quiescent galaxies up to z~2. In Lorenzon, Donevskl et al. 2025, ApJL, we present our ultra-deep ALMA Band 6 continuum and CO(3-2) observations of QGs in the COSMOS field. Our study triples the number of QGs with direct dust and CO estimates, constraining 17 systems with stellar population ages of 5-10 Gyr.
Evolution of molecular gas fraction and dust-to-gas mass ratio for quiescent galaxies across cosmic time
(Lorenzon, Donevski, Man, et al. 2025, ApJL)
5. UNDUST: State-of-the-art model of dust lifecycle in galaxies
To allow the community a tool for interpreting the evolution of ISM in quiescent galaxies, I developed UNDUST, the first semi-analytic model that follows the coupled evolution of dust, cold gas, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), using flexible star-formation histories and a framework tracking small and large carbonaceous and silicate grains. In Donevski, Nanni, Whitaker + 2026, we tailored this model to galaxies' post-quenching evolutionary histories, as the first ever attempt to understand diverse dust and gas content observed with JWST and ALMA.
