Astrophysics Advisors
Source: https://astronomy.fas.harvard.edu/book/astrophysics-advisors Parent: https://astronomy.fas.harvard.edu/undergraduate-program
There are over 500 faculty, scientists and post-doctoral fellows at the Center for Astrophysics. Here is a list of the subset of senior researchers who are likely to advise graduate students on their research.
For contact information, click on the name. SAO = Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory
\ \ SAO Astrophysicist\ Harvard Lecturer in Astronomy\ Research Interests: Planet formation in the disks of gas and dust that orbit around young stars, primarily using radio interferometer data. PI of DSHARP, an ALMA Large Program that imaged protoplanetary disks at very high angular resolution to study their small-scale substructures.\ CFA Disk Group
\ Professor of Astronomy\ Research interests: The study of gamma-ray bursts, optical transients (mainly from the Pan-STARRS project), and magnetic fields in low-mass stars and brown dwarfs. He uses observations across the electromagnetic spectrum, from radio to γ-rays.\ Berger Time-Domain Group
David Charbonneau\ Fred Kavli Professor of Astrophysics\ Harvard College Professor\ Research Interests: Detection and characterization of extrasolar planets, with the goal of studying inhabited worlds. In pursuit of this goal I also pursue novel ground-based and space-based instrumentation, and studies of stellar astrophysics.\ The Exoplanet Laboratory\ \ \ Senior Lecturer Harvard Astronomy\ Research interests: Theoretical cosmology, including: early universe models; primordial density perturbations; cosmic microwave background; large scale structure; dark matter; and string cosmology.
\ Assistant Professor of Astronomy\ Research interests: The origin of Fast Radio Bursts and their application to cosmology; the intersection of AI and astrophysics, in particular computer vision methods for astronomical imaging and ill-posed 3D reconstruction. To advance these subjects, I build large arrays of radio telescopes that can image the Gigahertz sky and search for millisecond radio pulses.\ Professional Website
\ Professor of Astronomy\ Director of Graduate Studies\ Research Interests: Galaxy formation and evolution, connection between galaxies and dark matter halos, stellar population modeling, stellar evolution.\ Professional Website\ \ \ SAO Astronomer\ Harvard Senior Research Fellow\ Research Interests: Studying super massive black holes with sufficient resolution to directly observe the event horizon.\ The Event Horizon Telescope\ \ Daniel Eisenstein\ Professor of Astronomy\ Research Interests: Cosmology and extragalactic astronomy with a mix of theoretical and observational methods; the development of the baryon acoustic oscillation method to measure the cosmic distance scale and study dark energy.\ Professional Website
Daniel Fabricant\ SAO Astronomer\ Associate Director, Optical & Infrared Division\ Research Interests: Large optical IR telescopes and instruments\ OIR Division\ \ Douglas Finkbeiner\ Professor of Astronomy and of Physics\ Research Interests: The 3-D Milky Way (dust density, temperature, and optical properties, the radiation field, etc.), astronomical surveys (DESI, SDSS-V, DECam Plane Survey), astrostatistics (transdimensional inference, photometric biases), and gamma-ray astronomy (Fermi Bubbles and dark matter annihilation). Also interested in using techniques in the field of "Adversarial AI" to make machine learning more robust and explainable.\ Professional Website\ \ Alyssa A Goodman\ Robert Wheeler Willson Professor of Applied Astronomy\ co-Director for Science at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study\ Research Interests: Goodman's work spans interstellar gas astrophysics, science education, data science, data visualization, and prediction. Use of the WorldWide Telescope software to help teach science, and to make discoveries about the Universe such as high-dimensional linked-view exploratory data visualization software known as "Glue."\ Professional Website\ Seamless Astronomy\ \ Lincoln Greenhill\ SAO Radio Astronomer\ Harvard Senior Research Fellow\ Research Interests: Observational cosmology is the Dark Age and Epoch of Reionization. He also studies topics related to supermassive black holes, accretion disks, and jets. Additional interests include formation mechanisms of high mass stars, masers, radio astronomical instrumentation, interferometry, signal processing, and massively parallel stream supercomputing.\ Professional Website\ \ \ Robert Treat Paine Professor of Practical Astronomy\ Research Interests: High Energy Astrophysics: Studies of accretion onto compact objects (black holes, neutron stars and white dwarfs). Development of detectors and telescopes for wide-field imaging surveys of black holes discovered in soft-to-hard X-rays. Time Domain Astrophysics: X-ray/optical/IR studies of Transients and variability of black holes in binaries and galactic nuclei to probe extreme physics phenomena and constrain black hole populations. Days-to-Century optical variability studies of stars and quasars with DASCH and followup spectroscopy to constrain formation and evolution of black holes.\ Dasch Project
\ Mallinckrodt Professor of Astrophysics\ Research Interests: Theoretical studies of dynamical processes in cosmology and galaxy formation/galaxy evolution. Numerical simulations of stellar dynamical and hydrodynamical systems. Investigations of the physics of compact objects, particularly neutron stars and the interplay between thermal and magnetic processes in strongly magnetized neutron stars.\ Institute for Theory and Computation
\ Director, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics\ Professor of Astronomy
\ Professor of Astronomy and Physics\ Research Interests: Kovac’s cosmology research focuses on observations of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) to reveal signatures of the physics that drove the birth of the universe, the creation of its structure, and its present-day expansion. His research over the past two decades has involved the design, deployment, and operation of multiple generations of radio telescopes at the Amundsen-Scott Station at the South Pole.\ CMB Group
Charles Lada\ SAO Astrophysicist\ Harvard Lecturer in Astronomy\ Research Interests: Understanding the origin and early evolution of stars and planets and the cold molecular clouds which spawn them. Millimeter-wave, infrared and optical wavelength observations to investigate the natural physical processes which give rise to stars and planets in our galaxy.\ Division Website
\ SAO Astrophysicist\ Harvard Lecturer in Astronomy\ Research Interests: Focus is on the confirmation and characterization of transiting planets using facilities at the Whipple Observatory, such as the Tillinghast Reflector Echelle Spectrograph and KeplerCam, and determining planetary masses using the HARPS-N spectrograph at the 3.6-m TNG on La Palma.
\ Frank B. Baird Jr. Professor of Science\ Chair, Astronomy Department\ Director, Institute for Theory and Computation (ITC)\ Founding Director, Black Hole Initiative (BHI)\ Research Interests: Black holes, the first stars, the search for extraterrestrial life and the future of the Universe.\ Professional Website
Morgan MacLeod\ Harvard Lecturer in Astronomy\ Research Interests: Stars: stellar evolution, binary and multiple systems, interactions, mergers, collisions, star--planet interactions, common envelope phases, and the assembly of compact, gravitational-wave emitting binaries, with particular focus on the appearance of these events in the transient sky. \ Professional Website
Christopher S. Moore\ SAO Astrophysicist\ Astronomy Research Associate\ Research Interests: Chris’ research interests include on the atmosphere of stars. Currently, focusing on constraining solar coronal heating mechanisms during quiescence and flares. Specifically, working on techniques to improve constraints on the plasma temperature distribution, elemental abundances, and deriving connections between magnetic and radiative fluxes.\ Professional Website\ \ \ Thomas Dudley Cabot Professor of the Natural Sciences\ Research Interests: Gravitational lensing; accretion disks; black holes; gamma-ray bursts.\ Professional Website
\ Professor of Astronomy\ Director, Astrochemistry Lab\ Director of Undergraduate Studies\ Research Interests: Astrochemistry and its impact on planet formation, including the compositions of nascent planets. These topics are addressed using a combination of laboratory ice experiments, spatially and spectrally resolved millimeter observations, and theory.\ Professional Website
David Phillips\ SAO Astrophysicist\ Research Interests: Working on atomic clocks developing new devices and using existing clocks to test fundamental symmetries of nature.\ Walsworth Group
Katharine Reeves\ SAO Astrophysicist\ Project Scientist of the X-Ray Telescope (XRT) on the Hinode mission\ Research interests: Energy transfer in eruptions on the Sun, including solar flares and coronal mass ejections. I use both observational data and numerical simulations to trace the energy release in solar eruptions.\ XRT Website
\ F.W. Wright Senior Lecturer in the Department of Astronomy\ Director, Science Education Department\ Research Interests: Celestial navigation, developing graduate students' teaching skills, the STEM career pipeline, success in pre-college and introductory college STEM coursework, assessment and test construction, and the enhancement of the skills of teachers of science.\ Science Education Department
Dimitar Sasselov\ Phillips Professor of Astronomy\ Director, Origins of Life Initiative\ Senior Advisor in the Sciences for Advanced Study\ Co-Investigator, Kepler Mission NASA\ Research Interests: Extrasolar planets, Kepler mission, which is monitoring 100,000 stars in a three-year hunt for exoplanets -- including Jupiter-sized giants.\ Professional Website\ Origins of Life Website
Andrew Szentgyorgyi\ SAO Astrophysicist\ Associate Director, Solar, Stellar & Planetary Division\ Harvard Lecturer in Astronomy\ Research Interests: Neutrino astronomy, very high energy gamma astronomy and X-ray astronomy. More recently, optical high dispersion stellar spectroscopy with a focus on precision measurement of stellar radial velocities. PI for GMT-Consortium Large Earth Finder (G-CLEF), the first light instrument for the Giant Magellan Telescope.\ SSP Division
Andrew Vanderburg\ Assistant Professor of Astroomy\ Research Interests: My research focuses on studying exoplanets, or planets which orbit stars other than the Sun. I am interested in developing cutting-edge techniques and methods to discover new planets outside of our solar system, and studying the planets we find to learn their detailed properties. Eventually, I hope to help answer questions like "Are the planets orbiting other stars throughout the galaxy anything like the worlds in our Solar system?" and "Could any of these planets be hospitable to life like the Earth?". To learn more about my research interests, please visit my Research page. To learn about the members of my team, please visit my Group Members webpage.
\ Assistant Professor of Astroomy\ Research Interests: Theoretical and observational studies of extragalactic transients, including core-collapse supernovae and kilonovae. Development of statistical and deep learning methodologies for wide-field surveys, such as the Vera C. Rubin Observatory's Legacy Survey of Space and Time and Nancy Grace Roman Observatory.
Catherine Zucker\ SAO Astrophysicist\ Harvard Lecturer in Astronomy\ Research Interests: Galactic structure and dynamics, star formation, the interstellar medium, stellar populations, big data, astrostatistics, data visualization.