Research Interests

Theory of planetary formation and evolution is a natural area for me to focus my research activities for several reasons. First, we are currently in the midst of a revolution in the search for extra solar planets. In little over a decade, over 200 extra solar planets have been discovered. These valuable data drive theorists like myself to explore new ideas to account for the ubiquity of planets and diversity of planetary systems. My goal is to construct a unified theory which can explain the statistical properties of planetary systems.

Biography, Education and Training

PhD, Cambridge 1976 Postdoc, Cambridge & Harvard 1979-1979 Assistant Professor, UCSC, 1979-1982 Associate Professor, UCSC, 1982-1985 Full Professor, UCSC, 1985-Present Guggenheim Fellow, Otto Schmidt Medal, von Humboldt Fellow Sackler Fellow, Member of American Academy of Arts and Sciences Director, Kavli Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics