This is a very brief summary of the main projects that I am currently working on. They involve the use of the SMA, JCMT, and CSO submillimeter telescopes on Mauna Kea and all would be good topics for a thesis - email me for more information if interested.

The Orion Proplyds

We used the SMA to make the first mass measurements of the protoplanetary disks (proplyds) at the center of the Orion nebula. The proplyds are seen as silhouettes at optical wavelengths (as in this Hubble image) but by measuring the thermal emission from the dust at submillimeter wavelengths we can learn about their viability for solar system scale planet formation. A disk survey out beyond the center of the nebula is in progress.


Circumstellar Disks

Circumstellar disks funnel material onto a growing star and are the future sites of planet formation. Using all three submillimeter telescopes, we study them at a range of wavelengths and resolution to determine their masses and sizes and learn about their temperature and density structure. Future goals involve higher sensitivity observations to follow the late stages of their evolution and higher resolution studies (~0.2'') to sutdy inner holes and disk clearing, as shown here.


Debris Disks

Small amounts of cold dust is detectable in the far-infrared and submillimeter around some nearby main sequence stars. The dust is the debris from planetesimal collisions and signals ongoing planet formation. We have undertaken sensitive surveys to examine the timescale over which this process occurs and are beginning to carry out interferometric imaging of the brightest objects to examine the dust properties and look for dynamical signatures from proto-planets.


Massive Star Formation

The formation of massive (OB) stars is relatively poorly understood. New infrared surveys have discovered pre-stellar clumps and provided more detail on the most embedded, young stars. We are studying the structure, dynamics, and chemistry of these regions with the SMA to learn about formation processes and timescales. The panel shows SMA continuum emission in contours on a Spitzer image of a young massive cluster, revealing several cores in different evolutionary states.


Molecular Cloud Structure

Molecular clouds have a complex, heirarchical structure, loosely labeled as clumps and cores, that reflects their turbulent dynamics but may also determine the mass distribution of stars. I developed an algorithm, clumpfind, to analyze the structure in the 3-d datasets from spectral line mapping. Shortly, a new array camera, HARP, on the JCMT, will allow large surveys of high transition lines in dense cluster forming clumps and show how clumps fragment into cores.