Mike Montgomery
- Research Scientist
- Director of the Wootton Center for Astrophysical Plasma Properties
- Assistant Professor of Practice
- Freshman Research Initiative
- Astronomy
Don Winget
- Professor
- Director, Wootton Center for Astrophysical Plasma Properties
- Astronomy
Harlan J. Smith Centennial Professorship in Astronomy
Distinguished Teaching Professor
Keith Hawkins
- Associate Professor
- Astronomy
Roberto Mancini
Professor of Physics
Contact: rcman@unr.edu
University of Nevada, Reno - Atomic and radiation physics of high-energy-density plasmas; Stark-broadened line shapes; radiation transport; x-ray spectroscopy of plasmas; multi-objective spectroscopic data analysis.
Alisha Clark
Assistant Professor
Contact: Alisha.Clark@Colorado.edu
The center has expanded with the addition of Assistant Professor Alisha Clark (CU Boulder), who officially joined in the fall of 2023. Her research focus is on the physical properties of planetary materials at extreme conditions, which she investigates with dynamic compression experiments on the Z machine. She recruited AGU Bridge Program student Israel Carrillo to join her research group in the spring of 2024.
Collaborators
Patricia Cho
LLNL Postdoc/UT Graduate
Patricia (Patty) Cho is a former graduate student of the WCAPP center. She earned her BA in Asian Studies and Applied Linguistics from Williams College in 2010 and returned to academia in 2015 to study astrophysics at Columbia University in New York. For her masters degree, she explored the physics of compact remnant cores of stars known as white dwarfs. In 2020, she received the Laboratory Residency Graduate Fellowship to support her PhD work studying experimental photoionized plasmas produced at black hole accretion disk conditions using the Z-machine at Sandia National Labs. She successfully defended her PhD in July of 2024. She is now based out of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory as the 2024 HEDS Postdoctoral Fellow and has joined the NIF Fe Opacity Campaign collaboration.
Contact: cho32@llnl.gov
Bart Dunlap
Research Associate
Bart Dunlap is a UT Austin research assocaite working at Sandia National Labs. His work has centered on using white dwarf stars to elucidate broader areas of astrophysics. He has used observations of white dwarf stars to study failed supernovae, phase transitions at extreme temperatures and densities, and remnant exoplanetary systems. He has also been involved in a survey using spectroscopic observations to determine the temperatures and masses of white dwarf stars to inform asteroseismic investigations of their internal structure. He is now using the Z-machine at Sandia National Labs to observe the same plasma conditions seen in the stellar spectra with the goal of ensuring that models of the astronomical observations yield accurate representations of the stars themselves.
Contact: bhdunlap@utexas.edu
Daniel Mayes
Postdoctoral Fellow
Dan is a postdoctoral fellow with the University of Texas at Austin, Department of Astronomy. He received his Ph.D. in December 2020 from the University of Nevada, Reno under Dr. Roberto Mancini for his work investigating atomic kinetics in laboratory photoionized plasmas, which are important for astrophysical systems, such as x-ray binaries and active galactic nuclei. Prior to this, he earned his B.S. in Physics in 2011 and his M.S. in Physics in 2014 both from the University of Nevada, Reno. In 2014, he was awarded the Regents' Graduate Scholar Award. As a postdoc, he has been stationed at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, NM to work with Drs. Jim Bailey, Tai Nagayama, and Guillaume Loisel on solar interior opacity experiments performed with the Z Machine. He has also been leading oxygen opacity experiments at the National Ignition Facility of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
Dan is a postdoctoral fellow with the University of Texas at Austin, Department of Astronomy. He received his Ph.D. in December 2020 from the University of Nevada, Reno under Dr. Roberto Mancini for his work investigating atomic kinetics in laboratory photoionized plasmas, which are important for astrophysical systems, such as x-ray binaries and active galactic nuclei. Prior to this, he earned his B.S. in Physics in 2011 and his M.S. in Physics in 2014 both from the University of Nevada, Reno. In 2014, he was awarded the Regents' Graduate Scholar Award. As a postdoc, he has been stationed at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, NM to work with Drs. Jim Bailey, Tai Nagayama, and Guillaume Loisel on solar interior opacity experiments performed with the Z Machine. He has also been leading oxygen opacity experiments at the National Ignition Facility of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
Contact: dmayes@utexas.edu
Jayden Blanchard
Graduate Student - Incoming, FA25
Jayden is a first year graduate student from Baylor University where he earned his B.S. in Astrophysics. His current work fits the photospheric parameters of white dwarf stars to photometric models, and he will continue to exploring white dwarfs working with Dr. Montgomery in WCAPP and extend into laboratory astrophysics.
Israel Carrillo
Graduate Student
Israel is a second-year PhD student at CU Boulder. He earned his B.S. in Physics, with a minor in Geophysics and Planetary Physics, from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2023.
To better understand planet formation, Israel studies planets as they are being destroyed by their host stars. This occurs in polluted white dwarf systems, where planets that were once in stable orbits spiral inward (due to the star's mass loss) and collide with one another or are torn apart by the white dwarf's strong gravitational pull. These events provide a unique opportunity to directly observe the composition of planetary interiors. By analyzing polluted white dwarfs, Israel is investigating both the processes involved in large impact events and the dynamics occurring deep within planetary mantles.
Contact: israel.carrillo@colorado.edu
Michelle Giovacchini
Graduate Student - Incoming, FA25
Michelle is a first-year graduate student in WCAPP. She graduated as a Distinguished Chancellor’s Scholar in Astronomy from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 2025 with minors in chemistry and Spanish. She has research experience in plasma engineering with the Nitrogen Fixation Team at the University of Illinois and in near-Earth asteroid characterization from an internship at Yerkes Observatory.
Contact: mag24279@my.utexas.edu
Bryce Hobbs
Graduate Student
Bryce is a 4th-year graduate student in the WCAPP center. Bryce is working with former WCAPP graduate student Thomas Gomez (now Hale Fellow at CU Boulder) in expanding the capabilities for the line-shape code Xenomorph, which will allow modeling ionized carbon lines observed in the white dwarf photosphere experiment. Other developments include expanding the Balrog code to include high magnetic fields for developing neutron star diagnostics.
Contact: brycehobbs@utexas.edu
Jackson White
Graduate Student
Jackson is a 4th-year graduate student in the WCAPP center. He graduated from Rice University in 2021, with a BS in Astrophysics. His work at UT Austin focuses on modelling spectral line shapes and hot dense plasmas at stellar atmosphere and solar interior conditions. He is a fellow in the DOE NNSA Stewardship Science Graduate Fellowship program, and is currently based out of Los Alamos National Laboratory.
Jackson is a 4th-year graduate student in the WCAPP center. He graduated from Rice University in 2021, with a BS in Astrophysics. His work at UT Austin focuses on modelling spectral line shapes and hot dense plasmas at stellar atmosphere and solar interior conditions. He is a fellow in the DOE NNSA Stewardship Science Graduate Fellowship program, and is currently based out of Los Alamos National Laboratory.
Contact: jacksonwhite@utexas.edu