Eric Mamajek
Assistant Professor
Dept. of Physics and Astronomy
University of Rochester
Rochester, NY 14627-0171
Office: 455A Bausch and Lomb
Phone: +1 585-275-5389
FAX: +1 585-273-2813
emamajek pas rochester edu

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Teaching & Classes: AST 241 - Spring 2009
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UR is joining the SMARTS consortium in 2009

Eric is an observational astrophysicist whose primary research interests are the formation and evolution of planetary systems, stars, and stellar groups in our Galactic neighborhood. His recent and on-going research projects and collaborations involve quantifying and trying to understand the evolution of protoplanetary and dusty debris disks around normal stars, improving distance and age estimates to astrophysically interesting stellar, protostellar, substellar, and planetary systems, and surveys to image extrasolar planets and substellar companions to nearby stars in the near- and thermal infrared. He has also recently discovered a few new nearby young stellar groups in the solar neighborhood within a few hundred parsecs of the Sun, and is interested in investigating the recent star-formation history and kinematics of the solar neighborhood and what it can inform us about star-formation mechanisms. He also recently co-authored a paper on the observational consequences of protoplanet collisions.

Eric recieved his Ph.D. in Astronomy (2004) from the University of Arizona, a M.Sc. in Physics (1999) from the University of New South Wales/ADFA, and a B.S. in Physics and Astronomy & Astrophysics (1998) from the Pennsylvania State University Schreyer Honors College in his home state of Pennsylvania. Eric was awarded a 4-year Clay Postdoctoral Fellowship from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in 2004 -- the first recipient of the fellowship to come directly from graduate school. In 1998, Eric was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to conduct research at the Australian Defence Force Academy in Canberra. He joined the University of Rochester faculty in 2008 as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy.

Recent Select Publications

  • Publications: sorted by # of citations, 1st-author only sorted by # citations, sorted by date, astro-ph submissions, PDF list of all refereed publications

  • I was lead editor for the conference proceedings for the 258th IAU symposium "The Ages of Stars" held in Baltimore in October 2008 (David Soderblom & Rosie Wyse were co-editors). The proceedings for IAU258 is being published by Cambridge University Press: Amazon | Cover | Cambridge Univ. Press Table of Contents | ADS Table of Contents. Many thanks to all of the authors who submitted their contributions in a timely manner!

  • Mamajek, 2009, 2nd Subaru Conference on Exoplanets and Disks: Their Formation and Diversity, "Initial Conditions of Planet Formation: Lifetimes of Primordial Disks"

  • Mamajek, 2009, IAU Symp. 258, "How Accurately Can We Age-Date Solar-Type Dwarfs Using Activity/Rotation Diagnostics?"

  • Luhman, Mamajek, Allen, Muench, & Finkbeiner, 2009, ApJ, 691, 1265, "Discovery of a Wide Binary Brown Dwarf Born in Isolation"

  • Kenworthy, Mamajek, Hinz, Meyer, Heinze, et al., 2009, ApJ, in press, "MMT/AO 5 Micron Imaging Constraints on the Existence of Giant Planets Orbiting Fomalhaut at ~13-40 AU"

  • Carpenter, Bouwman, Mamajek, et al., 2009, ApJS, 181, 197, "Formation and Evolution of Planetary Systems: Properties of Debris Dust Around Solar-Type Stars"

  • Mamajek & Hillenbrand, 2008, ApJ, 687, 1264, "Improved Age Estimation for Solar-Type Dwarfs Using Activity-Rotation Diagnostics"

  • Carpenter, Bouwman, Mamajek, & 13 co-authors, ApJS, in press, "Formation and Evolution of Planetary Systems (FEPS): Properties of Debris Dust around Solar-type Stars"

  • Preibisch & Mamajek, 2009, "The Nearest OB Association: Scorpius-Centaurus (Sco OB2)", Handbook of Star Forming Regions Vol. II. The Southern Sky, ed. B. Reipurth

  • Meyer, Carpenter, Mamajek, & 11 coauthors, ApJ Letters, 673, L181, "Evolution of Mid-IR Excess Around Sun-like Stars: Constraints on Models of Terrestrial Planet Formation"

  • Mamajek, 2008, AN, 329, 10, "On the Distance to the Ophiuchus Star-Forming Region"

  • Mamajek & Meyer, 2007, ApJ, 668, L175, "An Improbable Solution to the Underluminosity of 2M1207B: A Hot Protoplanet Collision Afterglow"

  • Mamajek, 2007, IAU237, p.442, "New Nearby Young Star Cluster Candidates Within 200 pc" (1 pg. conf. proc.)

  • Mamajek, 2006, AJ, 132, 2198, "A New Nearby Candidate Star Cluster in Ophiuchus at d = 170 pc"

  • Mamajek, 2005, ApJ, 634, 1385, "A Moving Cluster Distance to the Exoplanet 2M1207 b in the TW Hydrae Association"

  • Mamajek et al., 2004, ApJ, 612, 496, "Constraining the Lifetime of Circumstellar Disks in the Terrestrial Planet Zone: A Mid-Infrared Survey of the 30 Myr-old Tucana-Horologium Association"

    • Current Student collaborators affiliated with U. of Rochester (& project topic)

  • Alex Shvonski: 1st yr grad student (2009-present) - Spitzer circumstellar disk survey of new nearby stellar group
  • Mark Pecaut: 1st yr grad student (2009-present) - constraints on star-formation histories of nearby stellar associations
  • Marek Slipski: class of 2011 (2008-present) - ages of exoplanet host stars
  • Julieta Gruszko: class of 2012 (2009- present) - ages of field solar-type dwarfs from chromospheric activity

    Past student collaborators

  • Susana Acosta: class of 2012 (2008-present) - constraints on past solar mass loss

    EEM's Potentially Useful Memos and Code

  • Cool plots
  • A modern effective temperature (Teff) scale for dwarf (luminosity class V) stars
  • Basic data for the Sun
  • On the distance to 2M1207
  • On the Helium-Metal Fraction Slope dY/dZ
  • Intrinsic 2MASS J-H and H-Ks Colors of M Dwarfs
  • Notes on MK Luminosity Class V Standard Stars
  • cahk.f: F77 code for estimating ages of F7-K2 "solar-type" dwarfs using rotation/activity diagnostics
  • Comments and links regarding careers in astronomy/astrophysics
  • Some useful statistics papers for astronomers

    Computing

  • UNIX commands: most astronomers use UNIX (I use X11 X windows system running on a Mac...)

    Literature and Data

  • EEM's stellar links
  • astro-ph: astrophysics e-print service
  • ADS Astrophysics abstract service: the astrophysics literature search engine
  • Vizier at CDS: search catalogs by position or name of object
  • SIMBAD at CDS: search literature on 4 million objects outside of the solar system
  • SkyView: look at the sky at different wavelengths with many overlay options
  • NStED: NASA/IPAC/NExSci Star and Exoplanet Database
  • Extrasolar Planet Encyclopedia
  • US National Virtual Observatory