Our Researchers

Julieta Aguilera

Julieta Aguilera is a researcher in interactive and immersive visualization in the Adler’s Space Visualization Laboratory. She holds two MFA graduate degrees in Graphic Design and Electronic Visualization and has taught the whole design curriculum and also immersive environments. She is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Interactive Arts at the Planetary Collegium Program based in Plymouth, UK. Over the past 15 years, she has exhibited CAVE based Virtual Reality artworks and presented papers at international conferences and art galleries. She collaborates with astronomers, historians, educators as well as other artists, in the design and production of immersive and interactive pieces for special presentations, shows and research-oriented exhibitions.

Kim Arvidsson, Ph.D.

Kim Arvidsson, Ph.D. is a postdoctoral researcher at the Adler Planetarium. His research focuses on observational studies of star formation in our galaxy, particularly what differentiates the formation of massive stars from the formation of lower mass stars. He is a member of the MilkyWayProject science team, and has observing experience ranging from near infrared to radio wavelengths.

Lindsay Bartolone

Lindsay Bartolone is an associate director of education at the Adler Planetarium. In her role as associate director, her focus is on NASA Education and Public Outreach (E/PO) projects. She is the E/PO lead on NASA's  Interstellar Boundary Explorer mission. She is also co-investigator for two NASA Science E/PO forums, heliophysics and astrophysics, and the E/PO coordinator for NASA’s Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe.

Lauren Boegen

Lauren Boegen is the collections project assistant in the Webster Institute for the History of Astronomy at the Adler Planetarium. She received a BA in History and American Studies from Illinois Wesleyan University and an MA in Museum Studies from The George Washington University. In the Webster Institute, she is responsible for environmental monitoring and assisting with collections care.

Marvin Bolt, Ph.D.

Marvin Bolt, Ph.D., is the Adler‘s Vice President for Collections and he manages the resources of Adler’s Webster Institute for the History of Astronomy. Bolt is also a member of the executive staff. Learn more about his work and research on the executive staff page.

Jennifer Brand

Jennifer Brand is the collection manager in the Webster Institute for the History of Astronomy at the Adler Planetarium. Brand holds a BFA in Art History and a BFA in Metalsmithing from University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

Her interests include book, paper, and object conservation, and pest management in museum collections.

Larry Ciupik, M.S.

Larry Ciupik M.S. is an astronomer at the Adler Planetarium. He 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 has been with the Adler for more than 38 years 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, and the Adler web site, Ciupik coordinates selected public observing projects and attends monthly Adler After Dark telescope viewing. Ciupik's special interests include: forensic astronomy, teaching astronomy to non-science majors, observational astronomy, and active galactic nuclei.

Misty DeMars

Misty DeMars is a Executive Assistant to the VP for Collections and Webster Institute Project Coordinator at the Adler Planetarium. She received a BA in Visual and Critical Studies from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She coordinates the Webster Institute research center and collections projects.

Jeff Grube, Ph.D.

Jeffrey Grube, Ph.D. is a postdoctoral researcher in gamma-ray astronomy. Previously, he held a postdoctoral position at University College Dublin, Ireland, and before that completed his Ph.D. at the University of Leeds, UK. For the past eight years he has been an active member of the VERITAS Collaboration, first with the pioneering Whipple 10m gamma-ray telescope and then with the VERITAS array of four telescopes located in Arizona. He has lead efforts in calibrating the optical and pointing systems of the VERITAS telescopes, in addition to building analysis tools, which have enabled the discovery of gamma-rays from the most energetic particle accelerators in the universe.

Geza Gyuk, Ph.D.

Geza Gyuk, Ph.D., is the Director of Astronomy at the Adler Planetarium & Astronomy Museum and a Senior Research Associate at the University of Chicago. He received his Ph.D. in Physics at the University of Chicago. After a two year stint in both Trieste, Italy and La Jolla, CA, Gyuk joined the astronomy department at the Adler. Gyuk's research work has focused on a broad range of activities including the effect of decaying neutrinos in primordial nucleosynthesis, exploration of the content and kinematics of the Galactic halo utilizing gravitational microlensing, searching for very old white dwarfs in the galactic halo, and the study of extra-solar planetary atmospheres. His current projects are directed to the characterization of main-belt asteroids and very high-energy gamma-ray astronomy. Gyuk's outreach and education interests are similarly broad. At the Adler this includes show and exhibit production, continuing education classes, program development and interacting with the media. He is currently leading an effort to develop programs to give students, volunteers and visitors experience with hands on space exploration with high altitude balloons and pico-satellites.

Mark Hammergren, Ph.D.

Mark Hammergren, Ph.D. is an astronomer at the Adler Planetarium. His 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. Hammergren is the Director of the Astro-Science Workshop (ASW), an NSF-funded summer outreach program for high-school students interested in astronomy. The ASW program is in its 42nd year and includes such distinguished alumni as Astronaut John Grunsfeld.

Paul H. Knappenberger, Jr., Ph.D.

Paul H. Knappenberger, Jr., Ph.D., is President of Adler Planetarium in Chicago. Over the past 35 years he has led efforts to develop science and math exhibitions and to create educational activities for elementary and secondary schools. Before coming to the Adler, Knappenberger served for 18 years as Founding Director of the Science Museum of Virginia in Richmond. His research efforts include work in optical interferometry at the University of Virginia, where he earned his Ph.D. in 1968.  Knappenberger is currently a Co-Investigator on NASA’s Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) mission.

Learn more about Paul H. Knappenberger Jr. on the executive staff page.

Jodi Lacy

Jodi Lacy is assistant curator in the Webster Institute for the History of Astronomy at the Adler Planetarium. Lacy holds an MA in Public History from Loyola University Chicago and a BA in History and English from Marquette University.

At the Adler, Lacy is responsible for archival collections and coordinating production of the multi-volume collections catalog. She is the author of the exhibition catalog Mapping the Universe (2007).

Chris Lintott, Ph.D.

Chris Lintott, Ph.D., first visited the Adler Planetarium while on a tour of the United States in 2001, while he was studying Natural Sciences at Magdalene College in the University of Cambridge. He then went on to receive a Ph.D. in the astrochemistry of star formation from University College London, before taking up a research position in the University of Oxford. While at Oxford he ran the team responsible for Galaxy Zoo, a project which engaged hundreds of thousands of people in the task of classifying galaxies. At Adler, his work as Citizen Science Project Lead of Citizen Science Initiatives involves expanding the range and depth of opportunities for everyone to contribute to scientific research. He is best known as co-presenter of the BBC's long-running Sky at Night series, and as co-author, with Sir Patrick Moore and Queen guitarist Brian May, Ph.D., of the book "Bang," a history of the Universe.

Jill Hamrin Postma

Jill Hamrin Postma is the Research Center Collections Librarian at the Adler Planetarium. She holds a masters degree in Information and Library Science from Dominican University and a BA (summa cum laude) from the University of St. Francis. Postma is involved in several professional organizations, and serves on the public library board in Homewood, IL.

Doug Roberts, Ph.D.

Doug Roberts, Ph.D. is Associate Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at the Adler Planetarium and an Architect for Visualization at Northwestern University. He 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. Recently, 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, Roberts has worked as a science adviser for the 2002 Discovery Channel show entitled "Unfolding Universe". Additionally, 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,  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 the Space Visualization Laboratory.

José Francisco Salgado, Ph.D.

José Francisco Salgado, Ph.D., is an astronomer and science visualizer at the Adler Planetarium. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan and joined the Adler astronomy department in May 2000. Salgado's research experience involves studies of the turbulent interstellar medium of our galaxy. Currently, he uses his skills in astronomy education and visual arts to create multimedia works that communicate science in engaging ways. His education and outreach efforts include an Emmy-nominated astronomy TV news segment and critically-acclaimed astronomy films created to accompany performances of classical music works.

Lately Salgado, an avid photographer, has been experimenting with high dynamic range imaging, time-lapse, infrared, and fisheye photography, as well as with stereoscopic photography and video to enhance his multimedia works. Many of these works are shown at the Adler's Space Visualization Laboratory as well as in the 3D Universe Theater.

Arfon Smith, Ph.D.

As an undergraduate Arfon Smith studied Chemistry at the University of Sheffield before completing his Ph.D. in Astrochemistry at The University of Nottingham in 2006. He then worked as a senior developer at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute (Human Genome Project) in Cambridge before joining the Galaxy Zoo team in Oxford. Over the past 3 years he has been responsible for leading the development of a platform for citizen science called Zooniverse. In August of 2011 he took up the position of Director of Citizen Science at the Adler Planetarium in Chicago where he continues to lead the software and infrastructure development for the Zooniverse.

Michael Smutko, Ph.D.

Michael Smutko, Ph.D.,  is an astronomer at the Adler Planetarium and a senior lecturer at Northwestern University. 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. 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. Smutko is also an expert in adaptive optics, a technique that removes the effects of atmospheric turbulence from ground-based telescopes in real time. When not working on telescopes or teaching classes, Smutko does everything from developing exhibitions at the Adler to giving interviews on the latest happenings in astronomy.

Michael Solontoi, Ph.D.

Michael Solontoi, Ph.D., is a postdoctoral research astronomer at the Adler Planetarium.  His research focuses on the small bodies of the solar system (comets and asteroids) and he is working to characterize potentially silicate-rich asteroids as part of the Adler V-type Asteroid (AVAST) survey.  He has done extensive work on detecting and analyzing comets observed by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), and is a member of the Solar System Science Collaboration for the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST).

Bruce Stephenson, Ph.D.

Bruce Stephenson, Ph.D., is a curator at the Adler Planetarium. He received his Ph.D. in History from the University of Chicago, where he is an associate member of the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics.

He is the author of "Kepler's Physical Astronomy" and of "The Music of the Heavens: Kepler's Harmonic Astronomy," both published by Princeton University Press.

Stephenson led a team that studied the metallurgy of Adler astrolabes in a high-energy X-ray beam at Argonne National Laboratory’s Advanced Photon Source. In August, 2009, he delivered an invited keynote lecture on Kepler at the International Astronomical Union meetings in Rio de Janeiro.

Mark SubbaRao, Ph.D.

Mark SubbaRao, Ph.D. is an astronomer and Director of the Space Visualization Laboratory at the Adler Planetarium. He is also a senior research associate at the University of Chicago. His area of research is cosmology, particularly the large-scale structure of galaxies, their clustering properties and evolution. He was a builder of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, working as a developer of their spectroscopic software that measured redshifts, hence providing 3D positions for nearly one million galaxies and quasars. In the Space Visualization Laboratory, SubbaRao supervises the development of scientific visualizations utilizing cutting edge stereoscopic and ultra-high resolution displays.

Grace Wolf-Chase, Ph.D.

Grace Wolf-Chase, Ph.D., is a research astronomer at the Adler Planetarium and a senior research associate at the University of Chicago. Her research focuses on how different types of stars form in different environments in our galaxy. She has extensive observing experience from near-infrared to radio wavelengths on instruments such as the Spitzer Space Telescope, the Apache Point Observatory in New Mexico, and the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope in Hawaii. Wolf-Chase is a full member of the American Astronomical Society, a founding member of the Astrobiology Society, and an Affiliated Faculty Member of the Zygon Center for Religion & Science in Chicago.