Jack’s research centers on the use of emission lines to study the physical nature of active galaxies, such as quasars and Seyfert galaxies. This has led him to also study emission line objects in our own Galaxy, including the Orion Nebula and planetary nebulae, both to understand the nature of these very interesting objects and to calibrate the emission-line techniques on simpler, nearby objects before applying them to the much more complicated situation in active galaxies. He uses SOAR to study samples of the most distant quasars to see what they can tell us about the process of galaxy formation.

Tim is interested in the origins of the Milky Way. For the past 15 years, he has sought to identify tens of thousands of the oldest stars. Detailed studies of these stars with the high-resolution spectrograph of the SOAR telescope are revealing the "recipe of creation," the elemental abundances that were created by the first generations of explosive supernovae in the Galaxy. Some of the stars Beers identifies have detectable radioactive decay lines, such as Thorium, which are now being used to measure the age of the Universe. In this way, he is doing what he likes to call "cosmology with stars."

Timothy Beers                                                                  Professor

Ed is a theorist whose interests include accretion, astrophysical thermonuclear burning and compact objects. He has collaborated on several projects to study the densest matter in the observable universe, that found in neutron stars. Recent highlights include the first calculation of electron captures in the crust of an accreting neutron star using realistic nuclear physics input, a study of the "sinking" of heavy nuclei in the neutron star's ocean, and modeling of the cooling of a heated neutron star crust. His group is also active in trying to understand how some white dwarf stars explode to produce type Ia supernovae.

Edward Brown                                               Associate Professor

Megan studies clusters of galaxies. Cluster evolution tells us about the matter density of the universe, because the formation of galaxy clusters is governed by gravitational physics. Megan pays particular attention to how clusters are found, because any bias in finding clusters can lead to a bias in our conclusions about them. She also studies the metallicity, distribution, and physics of intergalactic gas. Is this really where most of the baryons are hiding? Her work includes models and observational tests of cooling flows in the gas within clusters. Strange things are afoot in cluster cores and she would like to sort it out.

Megan Donahue                                                              Professor

Ed pioneered a technique that allows astronomers to estimate redshifts of galaxies from detailed analysis of their colors. With an estimate of a galaxy's redshift, he can determine the distance to the galaxy. Counts of galaxies in distance intervals allow Ed to put tight limits on the density of mass in the Universe. If the density is low, the Universe will expand forever. A high density means that it will someday halt its general expansion and collapse. With the SOAR telescope, he is obtaining such data for hundreds of thousands of galaxies, from the relatively nearby to the most distant ones known.

Edwin Loh                                                       Associate Professor

Brian’s research focuses on theoretical and numerical studies of galaxy formation and evolution, primarily using the Enzo adaptive mesh refinement code.  He is particularly interested in the formation of the first stars, galactic chemical evolution, and the astrophysics of galaxy clusters.  He is also interested in petascale computing, because many problems in astrophysics rely on numerical simulations to make theoretical progress.  As the questions we ask become more difficult, so too must the calculations we undertake in our efforts to answer them.

Brian O’Shea                                         Assistant Professor (LBC)

Horace is one of the world's experts on the nature of the pulsating stars known as RR Lyraes and Cepheids. These stars can double their brightness on time scales of a few hours to a few days. The steady beats of these pulsating stars are like cosmic clocks, measuring the rate at which nuclear fuel is consumed in their cores. This connection between the pulsation period and the brightness of a star enables astronomers to measure the distance to the galaxy in which such a star lives. Horace is using SOAR to study variable stars in stellar systems at distances in excess of a million light years from Earth.

Horace Smith                                                                   Professor

Bob's research interests involve three-dimensional numerical simulations of convection in the Sun and in stars like the Sun. He works on realistic models of convection near the solar surface using supercomputers and massively parallel computers. These simulations have been combined with helioseismology to probe the internal structure of the Sun. He also studies the role that entropy fluctuations play in driving the convection and the dynamical nature of the solar chromosphere—the region above the Sun’s visible surface where many strong lines in the solar spectrum are produced.

Robert Stein                                                    Professor Emeritus

Mark's research explores how the hydrogen and helium gas that pervaded the early universe becomes transformed into the stars and galaxies we see today. Gravity draws matter into increasingly larger structures as time passes, but as stars begin to form, feedback from supernovae and supermassive black holes start to inhibit additional star formation. Mark is particularly interested in how feedback mechanisms operate in groups and clusters of galaxies. He also studies how the properties of dark matter and dark energy can be deduced from observations of the evolution of galaxy clusters.

Mark Voit                                                                         Professor

Steve's research focus is the formation and evolution of galaxies. He determines how galaxies form and evolve by studying their globular cluster systems, which provide important and observationally accessible evidence of the past history of star formation in galaxies. This is particularly important for elliptical galaxies, which are not forming stars now, but formed large numbers of stars some time in the past. Steve is also engaged in direct searches for the distant high redshift starbursts that make elliptical galaxies, and for signatures of the growth of massive black holes that are found in these galaxies.

Steve Zepf                                                                      Professor

Facundo Gomez, ICER Research Fellow:  Galactic Dynamics

Heather Jacobson, NSF Fellow:  Galactic Chemical Evolution

Laurens Keek, Research Fellow, Compact Objects

Young Sun Lee, Research Fellow:  Galactic Chemical Evolution

Mark Peacock, Research Fellow:  Globular Clusters

Britton Smith, Research Fellow:  Computational Astrophysics

Nick Sterling, NSF Fellow:  Galactic Chemical Evolution

Research Associates

Jack Baldwin                                                                  Professor

Astronomy        Research       Faculty        Graduate        Undergrad        Events        Directory        Contact