My ........ Research ........ Caltech Teaching ........ External Committee Work ........ Public Interest ........ Personal Interest ........

Research

• my preprints, publications, etc (including orion data tables)
• homegrown astronomy tools
• my collaborators
• astronomy links

Primary Research Interests (Observational Star Formation)

• Young Stellar Clusters: cluster shapes, sizes, and densities; the time sequence of star formation as a function of cloud/cluster position; stellar age spreads in clusters; the initial mass function; relationships between cluster density and mass of the most massive star; cluster dynamics.
• Herbig Ae/Be Stars: circumstellar dust and gas; accretion; pre-main sequence evolution.
• Accretion Disks: disk sizes, masses, accretion rates, and survival times as a function of stellar mass; constraints on planet formation timescales; magnetospheric inner-disk holes; optical/near-infrared variability.
• Post-Accretion Disks: timescales for gas giant and terrestrial planet formation.
• Stellar Angular Momentum: rotation trends with stellar mass and age; relationship to disk evolution.

Other interests:

• interferometry
• adaptive optics
• astrobiology
• globular clusters
• binary stars
• the outer solar system

A few ongoing and recent projects: research on circumstellar disk evolution research on the initial mass function research on photometric variability research on Protostars research on the North American Nebula research on the Orion Nebula Cluster research on Herbig Ae/Be stars and associated clusters random discoveries	what is a planet?

Caltech Teaching