Research Interests

I am involved in a number of projects to observe the early stages of massive star formation. My work is generally multi-wavelength, including optical, near-infrared, millimeter, and radio spectroscopy and imaging. [ List of publications ]

I played an integral role in the Bolocam Galactic Plane Survey. The BGPS is a 1.1mm survey of the northern Galactic plane using the Bolocam bolometer array on the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory (CSO) from 2005-2009. It was released to the public via IPAC in June 2009. I wrote the data reduction pipeline and reduced the data. I am a coauthor on the first 4 papers from the survey, including 2nd author on the data paper and 3rd author on the catalog paper. The image to the right was the 2008 (and final) NRAO photo contest winner. An early poster from AAS 215 is here.

My first accepted paper was a NIR/mm study of the high-mass star forming region IRAS 05358+3543. We identified additional outflows and suggested that there may be a ~10 MO binary in the system. At a distance of 1.7 kpc, this object is one of the closest and best examples of a hypercompact HII region that is likely to be a high-mass star still accreting. The paper was published in the Astrophyiscal Journal . I am a co-author on a near-infrared work by Chi-Hung Yan. I am engaged in ongoing work to follow up this region with Bolocam 1.1mm, Herschel far-infrared, and Arecibo, GBT, and eVLA radio measurements. I believe this source will be a promising candidate for ALMA follow-up as well.

I am studying the W5 and L111 massive star forming complexes in the outer galaxy using the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope's HARP heterodyne array and the Bolocam Galactic Plane Survey. We have discovered many outflows and determined that star formation is occurring in parts of these regions previously suspected to be inactive. A group led by John Bally is also surveying these regions in molecular hydrogen emission to search for outflows. Some of this research was presented at the Stars to Galaxies conference in this poster and these proceedings, and other components at the Protostellar Jets in Context conference. A paper has been accepted on the outflows, and work is in progress to use the CO data to examine the effects of triggering in the cometary clouds in W5.

I am a collaborator on a project led by Cara Battersby to study the physical properties of Infrared Dark Clouds (IRDCs). The first publication is a detailed study of a few clumps using millimeter continuum and heterodyne data in conjunction with VLA continuum data to evaluate evolutionary states. A second publication on the non-IR-dark cousins of IRDCs using Herschel data has also been completed.

I am leading a study of the density of molecular "clumps" in the Galactic plane using the formaldehyde densitometer with collaborators Cara Battersby , Jeremy Darling , and Ben Zeiger. Our pilot program is completed and the main survey is underway with >r;90% of the observations completed. The first results were presented at AAS 217 in Seattle.

I study Luminous Blue Variable stars and their ejectae. I am engaged in projects to measure the amount and properties of dust around LBVs. The image shown here is a demonstration of the capabilities of a moderate aperture 3.5m telescope in imaging circumstellar ejectae. A simple coronagraph - a thin sheet of metal - was put at the focus of the NICFPS imaging system to acquire this image, which shows two concentric explosions from the eruptive LBV P Cygni.

I am interested in software development for public use. My personal software page lists some of my projects. I have a google code page on which I've released some useful codes, the most important being readcol. I participate in APLpy development, working on ds9 region inclusion and user-specified WCS.

Jordan Mirocha and I are developing a Python-based Spectroscopic Analysis Toolkit meant to be for general use, including all of the major fitting functions available in IRAF, GBTIDL, CLASS, and other major codes. The main goal is for it to be extensible and useable both interactively and in batch codes. The radio astronomers at CASA have a radio-astronomy-related code page at casaradio to which I am a contributor.

Some other stuff I've done: Spitzer, 2MASS, UBVi Filter Specifications / Spectral Responses / Zero Magnitude Fluxes Observing Record