Affiliated Faculty
- Title
- Professor
- Division Physical & Biological Sciences Division
- Department
- Astronomy & Astrophysics Department
- Affiliations Earth & Planetary Sciences Department
- Phone 831-459-1312
- Fax 831-426-3115
- Website
- Office Location
- Center for Adaptive Optics, 205
- Center for Adaptive Optics (CfAO) 205
- Mail Stop UCO / Lick Observatory
- Mailing Address
- 1156 High St.
- Santa Cruz CA 95064
- Faculty Areas of Expertise Astrophysics, Astronomy
Summary of Expertise
Planetary Atmospheres
Planetary Interiors
Exoplanets
Brown Dwarfs
Research Interests
I try to understand different kinds of planets as classes of astrophysical objects. I am interested in characterizing planets to better understand their composition and how they evolve with time. I am mostly a modeler and theorist and I work very closely with observers. My work involves studying the atmosphere, interior, and thermal evolution of planets at ages young and old, within the solar system and around other stars, and at distances near and far from their parent stars.
I was involved in the Kepler Mission to find small transiting exoplanets close to stars and the Gemini Planet Imager (GPI) to obtain images and spectra of gas giant exoplanets farther from stars. I often collaborate with researchers in the high-pressure physics community to determine how our growing understanding of materials at high pressure affect our calculations of the structure of planets.
Biography, Education and Training
BS, Iowa State University, 1999
PhD, University of Arizona, 2004
National Research Council Fellow and Spitzer Fellow at NASA Ames Research Center, 2004-2007
Teaching Interests
Planets, Stars, and Planetary and Stellar Systems
