Research+Profiles

toc //**Members:** Please place your sketch in alphabetical order by last name// (Use the **//Heading 3//**, not **boldface**, setting for the line with your name on it.)

Conny Aerts
Personal Website Conny Aerts

Conny Aerts has worked on asteroseismology across the entire HR diagram, but with special interest in massive stars. Specific attention was paid to the development of state-of-the-art methodology for data interpretation, such as mode identification of heat-driven modes, with the goal to bridge theory and observations. She likes long-term planning, and as such has specialised in gravity-mode oscillations in various types of main sequence stars. Latest interests also concern red giant and subdwarf B pulsators, either single or binaries. Meanwhile, 16 students graduated under her supervision, so that aspect of her work is an important priority.

Thierry Appourchaux
ThierryA has been involved in helio- and asteroseismology since the 80's (gosh!). His main interest has been building space instrumentation (Luminosity Oscillations Imager on SoHO, Data Processing Units of CoRoT), data analysis, frequentist and Bayesian statistics and sometimes stellar Science. He is currently involved in analyzing the Kepler solar-like stars, devising automatic analysis system (not merely relying on your eyes). He was a staff member of ESA from 1988 to 2004, and is now working at the Institut d'Astrophysique Spatiale.

Steven Bloemen
I am a PhD student of Conny Aerts and Roy Østensen at K.U.Leuven, Belgium. My primary interests are pulsating subdwarfs (sdB, sdO) and (or even better, in) compact binaries.

Stéphane Charpinet
I am a CNRS researcher at IRAP in Toulouse (France) and my primary interest goes into sounding the interior of evolved compact stars (hot subdwarfs and white dwarfs) with asteroseismology in order to better understand their constitution, origin, and evolution, as well as the physics involved. This requires extensive calculations of stellar and pulsation models with direct connections to the observational constraints (seismic and non-seismic). I'm also doing time series data analysis and observations at times.

Matteo Cantiello
I am a KITP Postdoc. My research focuses on stellar evolution of single and binary stars, with a special emphasis on the massive ones. I am very interested in magnetohydrodynamics processes in stellar interiors. My work is mainly theoretical: I do model stellar evolution using codes that include the effects of internal mixing processes in a diffusion approximation. I also do local simulations of some of these processes using 3D MHD codes. I am involved in the VLT-FLAMES Tarantula Survey, a very large survey of massive stars in 30 Doradus.

**[|Pieter Degroote]**
I am a postdoc at K.U.Leuven, focusing on stars in the upper part of HR-diagram, from late B-type to early O-type. I am an observer, doing mainly data analysis. The starting point of my work is the CoRoT asteroseismology data, leading me to fiddle with both photometric and spectroscopic datasets, to detect oscillations but also to fix fundamental parameters. The photometric work has lead me in the direction of the problem of accurate determinations of photometric fundamental parameters (focusing on hot stars) and on photometric mode-identification methods (although not applicable on single-band CoRoT or Kepler photometry). The spectroscopic work leads me to line profile variability studies and spectroscopic abundance analysis. Lately, my interest is also drawn towards modelling of (eclipsing) binaries.

Rafael A. Garcia
Rafael is a staff scientist of the Service d'Astrophysique, CEA-Saclay in France. His main research interests focus on the study of the core of the Sun and solar-like stars by means of helio- and astero-seismic observations. He is also deeply involved in the study of the dynamical effects: rotation and magnetic activity cycles. His work mostly deals with observations and data analysis.

Haili Hu
I am a postdoc at the IoA, University of Cambridge. I am interested in the effects of chemical transport processes in stars on their pulsations. Currently, my research focuses on hot subdwarfs but I hope to branch out into other stars as well during this program.

Steve Kawaler
Steve is a professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Iowa State University. His research focuses on stars and in particular, novel probes of their evolution and the physics of their interiors. Most of his work involves computational modeling of stellar interiors and analysis of time-series analysis of variable stars, though he knows the night sky pretty well for a theorist...

**Marc Pinsonneault**
Marc is a professor in the Astronomy Department of Ohio State University. He is a stellar interiors theorist with two broad areas of interest: the physics of stars and the application of precise stellar models to population studies with wider astrophysical applications. Current research revolves around 1) devising tests of fundamental stellar model predictions with pulsation data (in both the solar and stellar case); 2) angular momentum evolution of stars and applications to stellar ages; and 3) the intersection between asteroseismology and the [|APOGEE survey] of galactic stellar populations.

Daniel Reese
I'm a postdoc at the LESIA, Paris Observatory. I work on the effects of rapid rotation on stellar pulsations, including a full description of the centrifugal deformation and the Coriolis force. I'm also currently working on inverse methods for determining stellar mean density.

[|Robert Szabo]
I am a research fellow at the Konkoly Observatory in Budapest, Hungary. My main research interest is numerical modeling of RR Lyrae stars and Cepheids. During the recent years I have been analysing Kepler data, as well, becasue this space telescope provides an unprecedented view of the mysterious Blazhko-effect among many other phenomena.

Masao Takata
I am a research associate in the Department of Astronomy at the University of Tokyo. My current research interest resides in the mode classification of adiabatic stellar oscillations. This is nothing but establishing a proper definition of the radial order, without neglecting the perturbation to the gravitational potential.

Anne Thoul
Anne is an FNRS Research Associate and works at the University of Liège in Belgium. Her previous research experience ranges from plasma turbulence to galaxy formation, including some work on stellar clusters. According to Steve (Kawaler) she is famous for the "Thoul diffusion routine" ;-) . For the last decade her main research interest has been asteroseismology. She has worked on the alpha centauri system, but B stars are presently her favourite stars. She is mainly a theorist but has lately decided that she wanted to learn more about data analysis...

[|Regner Trampedach]
I am a post doc at JILA, Univ. of Colorado, Boulder, being part of Juri Toomre's group. I run 3D simulations of convection in stellar surface layers, with emphasis on accurate atomic physics and radiative transfer. I apply these simulations to a range of problems in stellar structure: T-\tau relations, \alpha-calibration; seismology: granulation 'noise'-spectra, mode excitation; interpretations of non-seismic observations: synthetic colors, limb-darkening and limb-darkening factors; and for constructing realistic outer boundary conditions for global simulations of convection. I am also working on a compilation of accurate opacities for stellar atmospheres, and further development of the MHD equation of state.

Toby Wood
I'm a postdoc at UCSC, just up the road. I'm primarily interested in the differential rotation of the Sun and solar-type stars. I work on the angular momentum coupling, and magnetic flux transport, between the Sun's convective envelope and radiative interior.