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Department of Astronomy | phone: | (301) 405-4967 |
University of Maryland | FAX: | (301) 314-9067 |
College Park, MD 20742-2421 | E-mail: | available here |
Ph.D. | Astronomy, California Institute of Technology | 1995 |
(thesis advisor: Roger Blandford) | ||
A.B. | Astrophysical Sciences, Princeton University | 1990 |
(Summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, Sigma Xi) |
9/99-7/01
| 9/95-8/97
| 8/90-7/93
| 9/86-6/90
| 1987
| 1986
| |
See http://www.astro.umd.edu/~rauch/papers/.
Research Associate, University of Maryland | 8/01-Pres. |
See http://www.astro.umd.edu/~rauch/research/. | |
Davis Postdoctoral Fellow, Johns Hopkins University | 9/99-7/01 |
Developed a comprehensive package for numerical integration of hierarchical N-body systems using symplectic methods with Doug Hamilton. Expanded a subroutine library for tracing arbitrary geodesics in the Kerr metric, and examined the visual appearance of black hole accretion disks. | |
Research Associate, University of Maryland | 9/97-8/99 |
Investigated the stability properties of symplectic integrators applied to nearly-Keplerian problems in collaboration with Matt Holman; completed additional work on the dynamics of black holes in galactic nuclei. | |
Postdoctoral Fellow, Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics | 10/94-8/97 |
Worked with Scott Tremaine on resonant relaxation and pursued additional research on the dynamics of galactic nuclei. | |
Graduate Student, California Institute of Technology | 8/90-8/94 |
Undertook research with Roger Blandford on topics in gravitational microlensing, accretion disks, and active galactic nucleus dynamics and emission. | |
Thesis topic: ``Black Holes and Accretion Disks in Active Galactic Nuclei: Microlensing, Caustics, and Collisional Stellar Dynamics'' | |
Senior Research Project, Princeton University | 1990 |
Published an undergraduate senior thesis on the possibility of limiting the cosmological density of compact dark matter objects through microlensing effects on distant supernovae (advisor: Bohdan Paczynski). | |
Research Assistant, Cornell University | 6/89-8/89 |
Worked with James Cordes on the feasibility of using interstellar scintillation data to constrain the size of pulsar magnetospheres, under the auspices of the NSF Research Experience for Undergraduates program. | |
Junior Term Projects, Princeton University | 9/88-5/89 |
Completed two undergraduate term projects; one analyzed CCD photometry of the gravitational lens Q2237+0305 to test for microlensing-induced brightness variations among the images (advisor: Ed Turner); the other studied the consequences of a non-zero Λ cosmological model for the redshift distribution of quasars and the strength of the UV background (advisor: Jerry Ostriker). | |
Research Assistant, Princeton University | 6/88-8/88 |
Assisted Jill Knapp with a project to estimate the rate of mass return to the interstellar medium from evolved stars and associated remnants. | |
Advisor, Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics | 5/96-8/96 |
Supervised the participation of CITA summer research student Brian Ingalls in a project examining resonant tidal disruption in galactic nuclei. | |
Teaching Assistant, California Institute of Technology | 1993, 1994 |
Worked for two terms as the TA/grader of Caltech's graduate cosmology course. | |
Teaching Assistant, California Institute of Technology | 1993 |
Worked one term as the TA/grader of Caltech's graduate high energy astrophysics course. | |
Speaker, University of Maryland Observatory | July 2008 |
Presented a public lecture, "Perception, Reality, and Science: Do We Know Anything?". | |
Speaker, University of Maryland Observatory | June 2005 |
Presented a public lecture, "Black Holes in Focus: Extreme Gravitational Lensing". | |
Speaker, University of Maryland Observatory | August 2003 |
Presented a public lecture, "Chaos in our Backyard". | |
Speaker, University of Maryland Observatory | August 2002 |
Presented a public lecture, "Gravity, From Here to Eternity". | |
Speaker, University of Maryland Observatory | June 1999 |
Presented a public lecture, "Surfing the Universe on Gravity's Waves". | |
Speaker, University of Maryland Observatory | June 1998 |
Presented public lecture, "Peering at the Universe Through a Lens of Gravity". | |