Dan Watson's research is currently focussed on planetary-system and stellar formation. His observations are mostly carried out at infrared and submillimeter wavelengths, at which the atmosphere is opaque; hence the predominance of space, airborne and high-altitude observatories in his work. He has also recently been guilty of modelling of disks, protostars, and their outflows, though he usually collaborates with others who are better at theory and modelling than he is. He maintains his interest in the development of long-wavelength infrared detector arrays, high-resolution spectrographs, and high-contrast imaging.

 

Animation by Robert Hurt, SSC

Dan's publications and citations, via his Google Scholar profile.  
  James Webb Space Telescope: Dan is a co-investigator for several JWST programs, notably the medium-size Investigating Protostellar Accretion (IPA) and the large High angular resolution observations of stellar Emergence in Filamentary Environments (HEFE). Tom Megeath (U. Toledo) is PI of IPA and HEFE. Yes, the acronyms are required to be beer-based.

The IPA and HEFE gang also have ancillary observing programs on the NASA Hubble Space Telescope, Gemini Observatory, and the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility.
ESA Herschel Space Observatory: Dan was a co-investigator, and leader of the spectroscopy component, of the Herschel Orion Protostar Survey (HOPS), an open-time key program on Herschel for which Tom Megeath (U. Toledo) was PI. He also led or participated in several other open-time programs on Herschel. 
The IRS: Dan was a co-investigator on the Spitzer Space Telescope's Infrared Spectrograph (IRS), for which the late Jim Houck (Cornell U.) was PI.
Spitzer Space Telescope: Dan led IRS_Disks, a team of astronomers mostly from the Spitzer instrument and project teams, who have conducted an infrared spectroscopic survey of some 3000 protostars, protoplanetary-disk systems, and debris-disk systems, mostly lying within 500 parsecs of the Sun.
  Dan's talk at TEDX Rochester 2018. The theme of the meeting was Space.
Watch the launch of the Spitzer Space Telescope (then called SIRTF), 25 August 2003, aboard Delta #300.