Recent & Distinguished |
The Department of Physics was the first academic department when UCSD was established as a University in the early 1960s, and Astrophysics faculty and students have been present from the creation. The first Astrophysics PhDs graduated in the late 1960s. The following list contains ALL CASS/Physics PhD recipients since 1990 and the majority of recipients for the past 25 years.
Information on Graduate Study in Astrophysics within CASS.
Graduate | Year | Thesis Topic | Current Position |
---|---|---|---|
Dr. Kev Abazajian | 2001 | Neutrino Cosmology and Astrophysics | Research Associate, Fermilab |
Dr. Tom Barlow | 1993 | Variability of Broad Absorption-Line QSOs | Research Scientist, IPAC/Caltech |
Dr Gregory Benford | 1967 | Nuclear Magnetic Relaxation in High Magnetic Fields by Plasma Modes and Impurity States | Prof. Physics, Univ. Calif., Irvine Award-Winning Science Fiction Author |
Dr. George R. Blumenthal | 1971 | Astrophysical Applications of High-energy Electromagnetic Phenomena | Professor of Astronomy & Astrophysics, UCSC |
Dr. H. Brian Bowman | 1994 | A Study of Galactic Structure in X-rays and Gamma-rays | V. Asst. Prof, Rose-Hulman Inst. of Tech |
Dr. Michael S. Briggs | 1991 | Observations of Galactic Positron Annihilation Radiation | Research Physicist, NASA/Marshall Space Flt. Ctr. |
Dr. David Brin | 1980 | Evolution of Cometary Nuclei as Influenced by a Dust Component | Hugo & Nebula Award-Winning Author |
Dr. Mitchell Brittnacher | 1995 | A Linear Analysis of Tearing Instability in Magnetotail Equilibria | Research Scientist. Univ. Washington |
Dr. Robert L. Brown | 1969 | Interstellar Absorption of X-rays by Photoionization of Helium and Molecular Hydrogen | Associate Director, National Radio Astronomy Observatory |
Dr. Scott Burles | 1997 | Measurement of the D/H Ratio in QSO Absorption Systems | Assistant Professor, MIT |
Dr. Christian Y. Cardall | 1997 | Limits on Neutrino Mixing Parameters from Nucleosynthesis in the Big Bang and Supernovae | Postdoctoral Fellow, State University of New York, Stonybrook |
Dr. Kai-Wing Chan | 1990 | Nucleosynthetic Gamma-ray Lines and Positrons from Supernovae | Research Scientist, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center |
Dr. Wayne Coburn | 2001 | A study of magnetic fields of accreting x-ray pulsars with the Rossi x-ray timing explorer | Postdoctoral Fellow, UC Berkeley |
Dr. James Cordes | 1975 | Pulsar Microstructure: Time Scales, Spectra, Polarization, and Radiation Models | Prof. Astronomy, Cornell Univ. |
Dr. Donald P. Cox | 1970 | Calculations of Cooling Rates and Spectral Emission of Gaseous Nebulae | Professor of Physics, University of Wisconsin |
Dr. Charles D. Dermer | 1984 | Physics of Nonmagnetic Relativistic Thermal Plasmas | Research Astrophysicist, Naval Research Lab |
Dr. George H. Fisher | 1984 | Radiative Hydrodynamics of Flare Loops Heated by Impulsive Bursts of Energetic Electrons | Research Physicist, Space Sciences Lab, UCB |
Dr. Brendan Fisher | 1994 | High Time-resolution Infrared Imaging of Jupiter | Staff Member, JPL/Caltech |
Dr. Lyle Ford | 1996 | Spectral properties of Gamma Ray Bursts Observed by BATSE | Asst. Prof., Univ. Wisconsin (Eau Claire) |
Dr. William Forrest | 1974 | Circumstellar Grains and the Intrinsic Polarization of Starlight | Prof. Astronomy, Univ. Rochester |
Dr. Todd A. Gunkler | 1983 | Observations and Analysis of Solar Flares using Ha Spectral Profiles | Professor, Delta College |
Dr. Richard J. Harms | 1976 | Digicon Spectrophotometry of the Lambda Orion HII Region | President, RJH Scientific PI, HST Faint Object Spectrograph |
Dr. Xin-Min Hua | 1986 | Neutron and 2.223 MeV Gamma-ray Line Emission from Solar Flares | Research Scientist, NASA Goddard Space Flt Center |
Dr. Karsten Jedamzik | 1993 | The Small-scale Structure of the Early Universe | Research Scientist, Max Planck Institut fur Astrophysik (Garching) |
Dr. Young-Dae Jung | 1990 | Photoionization of Many-Electron Atoms | Associate Professor, Hanyang University |
Dr. Vesa Junkkarinen | 1980 | Broad Absorption-Line QSOs | Research Physicist, UCSD |
Dr. Frederick K. Knight | 1981 | X-ray and Gamma-ray Observations of Pulsed Emission from Radio Pulsars | Research Scientist, MIT Licoln Laboratory |
Dr. Paul LeVan | 1983 | Near Infrared Spectrophotometry of Seyfert Galaxies and planetary Nebulae in Helium 10830 | Staff Scientist, AF Geophysics Research Lab |
Dr. Charles Lindsey | 1975 | An Infrared Continuum Study of the Solar Atmosphere | Staff Astronomer, National Solar Observatory |
Dr. Gail McLaughlin | 1996 | Physics of Massive stars and Supernovae: Weak Interactions and Stability Analysis | Assistant Professor, North Carolina State University,Raleigh |
Dr. David Marsden | 1999 | X-ray observations of soft gamma-ray repeaters | Postdoctoral Fellow, SIO/UCSD |
Dr. K. Michael Merrill | 1976 | Infrared Spectrophotometry and Radiative Transfer in Optically Thick Circumstellar Dust Envelopes | Staff Astronomer, National Optical Astronomical Observatories |
Dr. Thomas R. Metcalf | 1990 | Flare Heating and Ionization of the Low Solar Chromosphere | Physicist, Solar Astrophysics Laboratory, Lockheed-Martin |
Dr. David Moore | 1994 | Narrow-line Region Kinematics in Seyfert Nuclei | Industry |
Dr. Richard Mushotzky | 1976 | Observations of Hard X-rays from Extragalactic Objects | Senior Astrophysicist, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center |
Dr. Patrick Nolan | 1982 | Hard X-ray Emission from Galactic Black Hole Candidates | Senior Res Scientist, Stanford University |
Dr. Kenneth H. Nordsieck | 1972 | A Dust-Radiation Instability in Ionized Nebulae, the Angular Momentum of Spiral Galaxies, and a Search for Circular Polarization in Extragalactic Objects | Professor of Astronomy, Univ. of Wisconsin |
Dr. Abraham L. Oren | 1995 | Faraday Rotation in Quasar Absorption Systems | Industry |
Dr. William Paciesas | 1978 | Hard X-ray Variability in Binary X-ray Sources | Research Prof., Univ. Alabama, Huntsville NASA Marshall Space Flight Center |
Dr. Robert Piña | 1994 | An Array Camera for Mid-infrared Astronomical Imaging with Application to Extragalactic Astronomy and New Methods in Bayesian Image Reconstruction | Asst. Prof., U. Florida, Gainsville |
Dr. Jason Prochaska | 1998 | The Physical Properties of Damped Ly-Alpha Systems: A Keck HIRES Investigation | Assistant Professor, UC Santa Cruz |
Dr. Richard Puetter | 1980 | Observations and Interpretation of the Emission-Line Spectra of Quasi-stellar Objects | Research Physicist, UCSD |
Dr. Yong-Zhong Qian | 1993 | Flavor-Mixing Effects of Cosmologically Significant Neutrinos on Supernova Dynamics and Nucleosynthesis | Asst. Prof. Physics, U. Minnesota |
Dr. Yoel Rephaeli | 1977 | X-ray Emission from Clusters of Galaxies | Professor, Tel Aviv University |
Dr. Jose Rodriguez-Espinosa | 1985 | Infrared Studies of Seyfert Galaxies and the Irregular Galaxy M82 | Senior Scientist, Inst. Astrofisica Canarias |
Dr. Ray W. Russell | 1978 | An Analysis of Infrared Spectra of Gaseous Nebulae with an Emphasis on NGC 7027 | Research Astronomer, Aerospace Corporation |
Dr. Neda Safizadeh | 2001 | Detection of Extrasolar Planets via Microlensing and Occultation | Postgraduate Fellow, UCSD/CASS |
Dr. James Sarmecanic | 1997 | Physical and Chemical Properties of Cometary Dust Derived from Modeling of Mid-infrared Imaging Observations | Industry |
Dr. Yang Soong | 1988 | A Study of the Temporal Spectral Behavior of Hercules X-1: A Binary X-ray Pulsar | Research Scientist, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center |
Dr. Virginia Wang | 1994 | Gamma-ray Burst Repetition: Biases, Evidence & Implications | Asst Prof, Claremont Colleges |
Dr. William Wheaton | 1975 | Observation of the Galactic Hard X-ray Background from OSO-7 | Staff Scientist, IPAC/Caltech |
Dr. Donna S. Womble | 1992 | The Extent and Content of Low-Ionization Gas in Galaxies | Monterey Instutute for Research in Astronomy |
Dr. Dennis Zhang | 1993 | A Test of Cosmic Ray Interplanetary Transport Theory | Postdoctoral Fellow, Institute for Geophysics & Planetary Physics, UCLA |
Dr. Wei Zheng | 1986 | Time Variations of Emission Lines in Quasi-stellar Objects | Research Physicist, Johns Hopkins University |