Adler Planetarium, Chicago, IL

Research & Collections

Department of Astronomy Research

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Faculty

Postdocs and Adjunct Faculty

Students and Interns

Support Staff

Adler Planetarium astronomers possess rich and diverse expertise in many areas of astronomy as well as other closely related science fields such as particle physics and geophysics. Several members of the Adler Astronomy Department also hold joint appointments at the University of Chicago and Northwestern University. The nature of these joint appointments strengthens the integration of the Adler and its educational mission with the research community.

Faculty

Lucy Fortson, PhD

Vice President for Research — Adler Planetarium
Senior Research Associate — The University of Chicago

Dr. Fortson's research work is conducted as a member of the VERITAS Collaboration. VERITAS (Very Energetic Radiation Imaging Telescope Array System) is a ground based observatory with an array of four 12-m optical reflectors for gamma-ray astronomy. VERITAS will substantially increase the catalog of very high energy gamma-ray sources such as active galactic nuclei, supernova remnants, and pulsars, as well as improve measurements of established sources. The array is located at the Basecamp of the Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory, near Tucson, Arizona and achieved first light on all four telescopes in April 2007. As leader of the Adler team on VERITAS, Dr. Fortson and her group, along with collaborators from U of Iowa, are responsible for implementing and maintaining a system of auxiliary cameras to improve the pointing accuracy of the main array telescopes. The primary science goals of the Adler VERITAS team are related to the study of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN). It is thought that active galaxies have black holes at their centers and these black holes can cause the light output from the galaxy to fluctuate. By studying both optical and gamma ray light output from these active galaxies, Dr. Fortson and her colleagues hope to learn more about the black hole engine at the center. The Adler VERITAS group organizes and participates in vigorous multiwavelength campaigns observing AGN in optical and gamma ray wavelengths to understand the correlations in power output from these objects. Additionally, Dr. Fortson is leading the VERITAS education and public outreach efforts.

Geza Gyuk, PhD

Director of Astronomy — Adler Planetarium
Senior Research Scientist — The University of Chicago

Dr. Gyuk is interested in a wide variety of topics ranging from the abundance, dynamics and colors of ancient white dwarfs in our Galaxy to the origin and distribution of V-type asteroids, He is a member of MEGA, a worldwide collaboration to probe the halo of the Andromeda Galaxy using Gravitational Microlensing, a technique that uses the effect of gravity on light to study dark matter. Dr. Gyuk is also a member of the VERITAS collaboration which operates an array of four 12-meter air-cerenkov gamma-ray telescopes at Mt. Hopkins. VERITAS will observe the Northern skies at GeV/TeV and higher energies.

Dr. Gyuk's responsibility as head of the Astronomy Department is to manage the staff astronomers and work with the other Adler department heads to bring accurate, appropriate, up-to-date content into all of Adler's programs and projects.

Larry Ciupik, M.S.

Astronomer — Adler Planetarium

Larry Ciupik is a member of the Adler's VERITAS research group. In this capacity, he is involved with implementing and maintaining the auxiliary camera systems on VERITAS that improve the pointing accuracy. He frequently travels to Arizona for data taking shifts. His research interests are in the area of Active Galactic Nuclei and in particular studying the optical emission from gamma-ray emitting AGN. Ciupik is a thirty-six year veteran of the Adler and along with his research interests, brings extensive sky show production experience, writing skills, and gifted high school and college teaching experience to the department. Along with writing articles for the members' newsletter, the Adler Star, the Adler web site, and CyberSpace — Adler's electronic gallery — Ciupik coordinates public observing projects and monthly Far Out Friday telescope viewing. Ciupik's special interests include: forensic astronomy, teaching astronomy to non-science majors, observational astronomy, and supernovae and active galactic nuclei.

Mark Hammergren, PhD

Astronomer — Adler Planetarium

Dr. Hammergren's research interests include asteroids (particularly their shapes, compositions and internal structures), the effects of past asteroid impacts on Earth, and the history and sociology of the flying saucer phenomenon. Dr. Hammergren is the Director of the Astro-Science Workshop, a NSF funded summer outreach program for high-school students interested in Astronomy. The ASW program is in its 42nd year and includes such distinguished alumnae as Astronaut John Grunsfeld.

Doug Roberts, PhD

Astronomer/Director of Space Visualization Laboratory — Adler Planetarium
Architect for Visualization — Northwestern University

Dr. Roberts is involved in several investigations to measure the motion of warm gas around the supermassive black hole that is believed to exist in the center of our Galaxy. The orbits of this gas can be used to determine the mass of the black hole and identify how the gravity of the black hole along with other processes affect the formation of new stars in the Galactic Center. Recently, Dr. Roberts has participated in world-wide campaigns to observe the supermassive black hole at the center of the Galaxy for hourly variability, which probes physics very near the black hole. Using his expertise of the Center of the Galaxy, Dr. Roberts has worked as a science adviser for the 2002 Discovery Channel show entitled Unfolding Universe. Additionally, Dr. Roberts uses radio telescopes such as the Very Large Array (VLA) and Green Bank Telescope (GBT) to investigate the interaction of the shells of exploded stars (supernova remnants) with molecular clouds, which are the stellar nurseries where new stars are formed.

At Northwestern University, as the Architect for Visualization, Dr. Roberts manages an advanced visualization lab, which supports researchers and educators use stereoscopic and ultra-high resolution displays to view complex data sets. This visualization experience is put to use at Adler where he is the Director of a new Space Visualization Laboratory, which is a group of astronomers, educators, artists and technologists bring immersive visualization experiences to the public in a newly-constructed space on the exhibit floor. Visualization experiences created int the Laboratory are refined and then deployed throughout the museum--in the Crown 3D Theater in the Milky Way Gallery, the Moon Wall in the new Shoot for the Moon Gallery and CyberSpace. Working with Space Visualization Laboratory staff, such as Dr. Mark Subbarao (Astronomer/Director of Visualization) at Adler and partners at the University of Chicago, Northwestern University and the University of Illinois at Chicago to create new interactive game-like experiences, which visitors at Adler can use to virtually explore the universe.

José Francisco Salgado, PhD

Astronomer & Visualizer — Adler Planetarium

Dr. Salgado received his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan and joined the Adler Astronomy Department in May 2000. Dr. Salgado's research experience involves studies of the turbulent interstellar medium of our Galaxy. To study this, he observed compact extragalactic radio sources using the Arecibo telescope in Puerto Rico and interferometer arrays in the U.S. (VLBA) and England (MERLIN).

In 2006 Salgado, a graphic artist, directed and produced a critically acclaimed High-Definition video suite to accompany two performances by the Chicago Sinfonietta of Holt's The Planets. That same year, he joined the Adler Visualization Laboratory, where he works on the visualization of data for teaching astronomy and disseminating science research to the public.

Salgado is the Emmy-nominated presenter of Nuestra Galaxia, an astronomy segment in the Noticias Univision Chicago 5 pm newscast. He is also Adjunct Professor of Astronomy at Benedictine University in Lisle, IL.

Michael Smutko, PhD

Astronomer — Adler Planetarium
Senior Lecturer — Northwestern University

Dr. Smutko holds a joint appointment between Northwestern University and the Adler Planetarium. At Northwestern, he teaches classes (for which he has won an Arts & Sciences Alumni Teaching Award and has been elected to the Faculty Honor Roll), advises students, and supervises the operations of the Dearborn Telescope. Dr. Smutko is also the Director of the Adler’s Doane Observatory. Together, these observatories house two of the largest telescopes usable by the public in the Midwest.

At the Adler, he conducts research into how stars are formed by studying “proto-stars” using infrared light that penetrates the dust and gases surrounding young stars. Dr. Smutko is also an expert in adaptive optics, a technique that removes the effects of atmospheric turbulence from ground-based telescopes in real time. Adaptive optics allows telescopes on Earth to achieve image quality better than space-based telescopes for a fraction of the cost.

When not working on telescopes or teaching classes, Dr. Smutko does everything from developing exhibits at the Adler to giving interviews on the latest happenings in astronomy—even if it means working with a cartoon robot every now and then.

Mark SubbaRao, PhD

Astronomer/Director of Visualization — Adler Planetarium
Senior Research Associate — The University of Chicago

Dr. SubbaRao's area of research is cosmology, particularly the large-scale structure of galaxies, their clustering properties and evolution. He is member of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey working as a developer of their spectroscopic software which automatically measures redshifts, hence 3D positions, for nearly 1 million galaxies and quasars.

Dr. SubbaRao serves as Director of Visualization for the Adler's Space Visualization Laboratory. Here he supervises the development of scientific visualizations and interaction techniques for the cutting edge stereoscopic and ultra-high resolution displays in the laboratory.

Grace Wolf-Chase, PhD

Research Astronomer — Adler Planetarium
Senior Research Associate — The University of Chicago

Dr. Wolf-Chase came to Chicago in June 1998 following a University of California President's postdoctoral fellowship to study the early stages of star formation at UC Riverside. She is continuing this research at the Adler and the University of Chicago. Wolf-Chase is especially interested in trying to understand how cold clouds of gas and dust in space collapse to form the different kinds of stars we observe, and how the process of star birth affects the dusty environments in which these stars are formed. The cold environments of star birth are best studied with infrared and radio telescopes, and Wolf-Chase uses several such telescopes around the world, as well as space-based observatories, since much infrared radiaion from space is blocked by Earth's atmosphere.

Postdocs and Adjunct Faculty

David Steele, PhD

Postdoctoral Research Fellow — Adler Planetarium

Dr. Steele comes to Adler after working on the Antarctic Muon And Neutrino Detector Array (AMANDA) at the Universty of Wisconsin - Madison, where he has been involved both in research and public education and outreach. As an AMANDA scientist, Steele traveled to the South Pole to help upgrade the AMANDA telescope, and conducted a search for neutrinos from highly energetic astronomical objects. He has co-instructed summer workshops called Astronomy in the Ice, offered to high school science teachers at UW-River Falls, and has visited dozens of classrooms across the midwest to share the excitement of neutrino astronomy. Dr. Steele now focuses on multi-wavelength studies of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) with the Adler VERITAS team and the VERITAS Collaboration. He leads the VERITAS effort to coordinate analyses between gamma ray data and data from IceCube (the follow-on experiment to AMANDA). He also plays a key role in long term monitoring projects of AGN involving multiple wavebands (radio, optical, X-ray, gamma-ray) and leads the optical analysis for these projects. Dr. Steele leads the Adler's efforts with the auxiliary camera systems on VERITAS to improve the pointing accuracy. He travels frequently to Arizona for data-taking shifts. Dr. Steele spends a portion of his time at the Adler on education and outreach activities. In particular, he gives presentations to the public in the Adler's Space Visualization Lab and writes material for the VERITAS public education website.

Niklas Karlsson, PhD

Postdoctoral Research Fellow — Adler Planetarium

Dr. Karlsson joins the Astronomy department at the Adler Planetarium as a postdoctoral fellow. He is a member of the VERITAS team at the Adler and studies the production of very-high-energy gamma rays in sources such as active galactic nuclei and starburst galaxies. Before coming to the Adler, Dr. Karlsson was a graduate student in the Particle and Particle Astrophysics group at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden, working extensively with the GLAST team at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. While at SLAC, Dr. Karlsson worked on models for gamma-ray emission from cosmic-ray interactions. An important part of his work with VERITAS involves spending time at the telescope site in Arizona for observation shifts and maintainance of the telescopes.

Dr. Karlsson is involved in the development of AGIS, the next generation gamma-ray telescope, leading the Adler's efforts. He also spends parts of his time working with public outreach, such as giving presentations in the Adler's Space Visualization Lab.

Support Staff

Rivka Rosen

Astronomy Administrative and Projects Assistant — Adler Planetarium

Ms. Rivka Rosen has a BS in Math and Computer Science from the University of Illinois At Chicago. She keeps the Astronomy Department running smoothly and efficiently. Ms. Rosen is also the editor of Prime Focus, the Astronomy Department newsletter.


		Research & Collections Department of Astronomy Research Back to the Astronomy Research main page Faculty Postdocs and Adjunct Faculty Students and Interns Support Staff Adler Planetarium astronomers possess rich and diverse expertise in many areas of astronomy as well as other closely related science fields such as particle physics and geophysics. Several members of the Adler Astronomy Department also hold joint appointments at the University of Chicago and Northwestern University. The nature of these joint appointments strengthens the integration of the Adler and its educational mission with the research community. Faculty Lucy Fortson, PhD Vice President for Research — Adler Planetarium Senior Research Associate — The University of Chicago Dr. Fortson's research work is conducted as a member of the VERITAS Collaboration. VERITAS (Very Energetic Radiation Imaging Telescope Array System) is a ground based observatory with an array of four 12-m optical reflectors for gamma-ray astronomy. VERITAS will substantially increase the catalog of very high energy gamma-ray sources such as active galactic nuclei, supernova remnants, and pulsars, as well as improve measurements of established sources. The array is located at the Basecamp of the Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory, near Tucson, Arizona and achieved first light on all four telescopes in April 2007. As leader of the Adler team on VERITAS, Dr. Fortson and her group, along with collaborators from U of Iowa, are responsible for implementing and maintaining a system of auxiliary cameras to improve the pointing accuracy of the main array telescopes. The primary science goals of the Adler VERITAS team are related to the study of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN). It is thought that active galaxies have black holes at their centers and these black holes can cause the light output from the galaxy to fluctuate. By studying both optical and gamma ray light output from these active galaxies, Dr. Fortson and her colleagues hope to learn more about the black hole engine at the center. The Adler VERITAS group organizes and participates in vigorous multiwavelength campaigns observing AGN in optical and gamma ray wavelengths to understand the correlations in power output from these objects. Additionally, Dr. Fortson is leading the VERITAS education and public outreach efforts. Geza Gyuk, PhD Director of Astronomy — Adler Planetarium Senior Research Scientist — The University of Chicago Dr. Gyuk is interested in a wide variety of topics ranging from the abundance, dynamics and colors of ancient white dwarfs in our Galaxy to the origin and distribution of V-type asteroids, He is a member of MEGA, a worldwide collaboration to probe the halo of the Andromeda Galaxy using Gravitational Microlensing, a technique that uses the effect of gravity on light to study dark matter. Dr. Gyuk is also a member of the VERITAS collaboration which operates an array of four 12-meter air-cerenkov gamma-ray telescopes at Mt. Hopkins. VERITAS will observe the Northern skies at GeV/TeV and higher energies. Dr. Gyuk's responsibility as head of the Astronomy Department is to manage the staff astronomers and work with the other Adler department heads to bring accurate, appropriate, up-to-date content into all of Adler's programs and projects. Larry Ciupik, M.S. Astronomer — Adler Planetarium Larry Ciupik is a member of the Adler's VERITAS research group. In this capacity, he is involved with implementing and maintaining the auxiliary camera systems on VERITAS that improve the pointing accuracy. He frequently travels to Arizona for data taking shifts. His research interests are in the area of Active Galactic Nuclei and in particular studying the optical emission from gamma-ray emitting AGN. Ciupik is a thirty-six year veteran of the Adler and along with his research interests, brings extensive sky show production experience, writing skills, and gifted high school and college teaching experience to the department. Along with writing articles for the members' newsletter, the Adler Star, the Adler web site, and CyberSpace — Adler's electronic gallery — Ciupik coordinates public observing projects and monthly Far Out Friday telescope viewing. Ciupik's special interests include: forensic astronomy, teaching astronomy to non-science majors, observational astronomy, and supernovae and active galactic nuclei. Mark Hammergren, PhD Astronomer — Adler Planetarium Dr. Hammergren's research interests include asteroids (particularly their shapes, compositions and internal structures), the effects of past asteroid impacts on Earth, and the history and sociology of the flying saucer phenomenon. Dr. Hammergren is the Director of the Astro-Science Workshop, a NSF funded summer outreach program for high-school students interested in Astronomy. The ASW program is in its 42nd year and includes such distinguished alumnae as Astronaut John Grunsfeld. Doug Roberts, PhD Astronomer/Director of Space Visualization Laboratory — Adler Planetarium Architect for Visualization — Northwestern University Dr. Roberts is involved in several investigations to measure the motion of warm gas around the supermassive black hole that is believed to exist in the center of our Galaxy. The orbits of this gas can be used to determine the mass of the black hole and identify how the gravity of the black hole along with other processes affect the formation of new stars in the Galactic Center. Recently, Dr. Roberts has participated in world-wide campaigns to observe the supermassive black hole at the center of the Galaxy for hourly variability, which probes physics very near the black hole. Using his expertise of the Center of the Galaxy, Dr. Roberts has worked as a science adviser for the 2002 Discovery Channel show entitled Unfolding Universe. Additionally, Dr. Roberts uses radio telescopes such as the Very Large Array (VLA) and Green Bank Telescope (GBT) to investigate the interaction of the shells of exploded stars (supernova remnants) with molecular clouds, which are the stellar nurseries where new stars are formed. At Northwestern University, as the Architect for Visualization, Dr. Roberts manages an advanced visualization lab, which supports researchers and educators use stereoscopic and ultra-high resolution displays to view complex data sets. This visualization experience is put to use at Adler where he is the Director of a new Space Visualization Laboratory, which is a group of astronomers, educators, artists and technologists bring immersive visualization experiences to the public in a newly-constructed space on the exhibit floor. Visualization experiences created int the Laboratory are refined and then deployed throughout the museum--in the Crown 3D Theater in the Milky Way Gallery, the Moon Wall in the new Shoot for the Moon Gallery and CyberSpace. Working with Space Visualization Laboratory staff, such as Dr. Mark Subbarao (Astronomer/Director of Visualization) at Adler and partners at the University of Chicago, Northwestern University and the University of Illinois at Chicago to create new interactive game-like experiences, which visitors at Adler can use to virtually explore the universe. José Francisco Salgado, PhD Astronomer & Visualizer — Adler Planetarium Dr. Salgado received his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan and joined the Adler Astronomy Department in May 2000. Dr. Salgado's research experience involves studies of the turbulent interstellar medium of our Galaxy. To study this, he observed compact extragalactic radio sources using the Arecibo telescope in Puerto Rico and interferometer arrays in the U.S. (VLBA) and England (MERLIN). In 2006 Salgado, a graphic artist, directed and produced a critically acclaimed High-Definition video suite to accompany two performances by the Chicago Sinfonietta of Holt's The Planets. That same year, he joined the Adler Visualization Laboratory, where he works on the visualization of data for teaching astronomy and disseminating science research to the public. Salgado is the Emmy-nominated presenter of Nuestra Galaxia, an astronomy segment in the Noticias Univision Chicago 5 pm newscast. He is also Adjunct Professor of Astronomy at Benedictine University in Lisle, IL. Michael Smutko, PhD Astronomer — Adler Planetarium Senior Lecturer — Northwestern University Dr. Smutko holds a joint appointment between Northwestern University and the Adler Planetarium. At Northwestern, he teaches classes (for which he has won an Arts & Sciences Alumni Teaching Award and has been elected to the Faculty Honor Roll), advises students, and supervises the operations of the Dearborn Telescope. Dr. Smutko is also the Director of the Adler’s Doane Observatory. Together, these observatories house two of the largest telescopes usable by the public in the Midwest. At the Adler, he conducts research into how stars are formed by studying “proto-stars” using infrared light that penetrates the dust and gases surrounding young stars. Dr. Smutko is also an expert in adaptive optics, a technique that removes the effects of atmospheric turbulence from ground-based telescopes in real time. Adaptive optics allows telescopes on Earth to achieve image quality better than space-based telescopes for a fraction of the cost. When not working on telescopes or teaching classes, Dr. Smutko does everything from developing exhibits at the Adler to giving interviews on the latest happenings in astronomy—even if it means working with a cartoon robot every now and then. Mark SubbaRao, PhD Astronomer/Director of Visualization — Adler Planetarium Senior Research Associate — The University of Chicago Dr. SubbaRao's area of research is cosmology, particularly the large-scale structure of galaxies, their clustering properties and evolution. He is member of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey working as a developer of their spectroscopic software which automatically measures redshifts, hence 3D positions, for nearly 1 million galaxies and quasars. Dr. SubbaRao serves as Director of Visualization for the Adler's Space Visualization Laboratory. Here he supervises the development of scientific visualizations and interaction techniques for the cutting edge stereoscopic and ultra-high resolution displays in the laboratory. Grace Wolf-Chase, PhD Research Astronomer — Adler Planetarium Senior Research Associate — The University of Chicago Dr. Wolf-Chase came to Chicago in June 1998 following a University of California President's postdoctoral fellowship to study the early stages of star formation at UC Riverside. She is continuing this research at the Adler and the University of Chicago. Wolf-Chase is especially interested in trying to understand how cold clouds of gas and dust in space collapse to form the different kinds of stars we observe, and how the process of star birth affects the dusty environments in which these stars are formed. The cold environments of star birth are best studied with infrared and radio telescopes, and Wolf-Chase uses several such telescopes around the world, as well as space-based observatories, since much infrared radiaion from space is blocked by Earth's atmosphere. Postdocs and Adjunct Faculty David Steele, PhD Postdoctoral Research Fellow — Adler Planetarium Dr. Steele comes to Adler after working on the Antarctic Muon And Neutrino Detector Array (AMANDA) at the Universty of Wisconsin - Madison, where he has been involved both in research and public education and outreach. As an AMANDA scientist, Steele traveled to the South Pole to help upgrade the AMANDA telescope, and conducted a search for neutrinos from highly energetic astronomical objects. He has co-instructed summer workshops called Astronomy in the Ice, offered to high school science teachers at UW-River Falls, and has visited dozens of classrooms across the midwest to share the excitement of neutrino astronomy. Dr. Steele now focuses on multi-wavelength studies of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) with the Adler VERITAS team and the VERITAS Collaboration. He leads the VERITAS effort to coordinate analyses between gamma ray data and data from IceCube (the follow-on experiment to AMANDA). He also plays a key role in long term monitoring projects of AGN involving multiple wavebands (radio, optical, X-ray, gamma-ray) and leads the optical analysis for these projects. Dr. Steele leads the Adler's efforts with the auxiliary camera systems on VERITAS to improve the pointing accuracy. He travels frequently to Arizona for data-taking shifts. Dr. Steele spends a portion of his time at the Adler on education and outreach activities. In particular, he gives presentations to the public in the Adler's Space Visualization Lab and writes material for the VERITAS public education website. Niklas Karlsson, PhD Postdoctoral Research Fellow — Adler Planetarium Dr. Karlsson joins the Astronomy department at the Adler Planetarium as a postdoctoral fellow. He is a member of the VERITAS team at the Adler and studies the production of very-high-energy gamma rays in sources such as active galactic nuclei and starburst galaxies. Before coming to the Adler, Dr. Karlsson was a graduate student in the Particle and Particle Astrophysics group at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden, working extensively with the GLAST team at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. While at SLAC, Dr. Karlsson worked on models for gamma-ray emission from cosmic-ray interactions. An important part of his work with VERITAS involves spending time at the telescope site in Arizona for observation shifts and maintainance of the telescopes. Dr. Karlsson is involved in the development of AGIS, the next generation gamma-ray telescope, leading the Adler's efforts. He also spends parts of his time working with public outreach, such as giving presentations in the Adler's Space Visualization Lab. Support Staff Rivka Rosen Astronomy Administrative and Projects Assistant — Adler Planetarium Ms. Rivka Rosen has a BS in Math and Computer Science from the University of Illinois At Chicago. She keeps the Astronomy Department running smoothly and efficiently. Ms. Rosen is also the editor of Prime Focus, the Astronomy Department newsletter.