The Stellar and Galactic Astrophysics research group focuses on a wide range of topics including the birth, life, and death of stars and their connection to our Galaxy and its neighbors. Members of the stars group play a leading role both cutting-edge observational work and surveys, have pioneered interdisciplinary efforts in laboratory astrophysics, have contributed to our theoretical understand of our Galaxy and its constituent stars. Many members of the Stars research group observe from McDonald Observatory as well as top international ground- and space-based facilities, are leaders in large industrial scale surveys of stars, and lead the development of next generation instrumentation that will enable further discovery in stellar astrophysics.
The diverse Stars group is composed several PI-led research groups which explore a wide range of topics in stellar and Galactic astrophysics. Harriet Dinerstein’s group focuses on observations of gas in the interstellar medium to better understand the the origin of the heavy elements and the star-gas cycle. Keith Hawkins’ Galactic Archaeology Lab focuses on the combining big data analytics with the chemical and dynamical nature of stars in the Milky Way and its local group neighbors to better understand not only stellar evolution but the formation and assembly of Milky Way-like galaxies. Don Winget’s group focuses on the later stages of evolution of Sun-like stars and the plasma physics the underlies astrophysical objects. Dan Jaffe’s group focuses on the development state-of-the-art instrumentation that enable the study of young stellar systems.
Numerous research scientists, postdocs, and graduate students lead work within the Wooten Center for Astrophysical Plasma properties, which provides and interdisciplinary framework connecting Universities around the US and National Laboratories to experimentally constrain the properties of astrophysics plasmas.
Chair
Keith Hawkins
- Associate Professor
- Astronomy