With ERIS, we work on reconstructing the evolution of galaxies like the Milky Way using phylogenetic trees, a tool widely used in other evolutionary studies in biology. Since trees are mathematical structures and graphs, with ERIS we began to establish an interdisciplinary collaboration among astronomers, biologists, and mathematicians to achieve this goal. We initially focused on reconstructing the evolution of the Milky Way, as it is the best natural laboratory available, but our aim is to extend this methodology to extragalactic astronomy, building and interpreting phylogenetic trees adapted to astronomical data. To this end, we simulate the evolution of galaxies, where we know their shared history. In addition, we use observational data, which has allowed us to explore the Milky Way and ultimately contribute to constraining theories of galactic evolution.
