Astronomer at the University of Virginia

I am a NASA Hubble Fellowship Program Sagan Fellow at the University of Virginia and a member of the Virginia Initiative on Cosmic Origins consortium. Previously, I completed my PhD in astronomy and astrophysics at Harvard University and the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, working with Karin Öberg and Qizhou Zhang. My research focuses on the chemistry of star and planet formation. I use high spatial resolution observations from (sub-)millimeter interferometers such as the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), Submillimeter Array (SMA), and Very Large Array (VLA) to characterize the chemical environments in which young planets are forming.

Some of my research highlights include:

• Identified several chemical signatures of a giant protoplanet in the HD 169142 disk, including the 1st detection of SiS in a planet-forming disk (see ALMA press release here)
• Mapped the vertical gas structure of CO isotopologues in a large sample of disks and showed that ¹²CO heights vary substantially among disks (z/r = 0.1 to nearly ~0.5)
• Served as a core team member of the MAPS ALMA Large Program and led two papers on the radial (MAPS III) and vertical (MAPS IV) chemical structure of protoplanetary disks
• Mapped complex organic molecules in the massive star-forming region G10.6-0.4 at subarcsecond resolution
• Created a 3D kinematic reconstruction of the oxygen-rich supernova remnant N132D (see it here, or in a VR environment here)

Contact Info

A PDF version of my CV can be found here and a full listing of my publications is available on ADS. You can contact me at:

cjl8rd@virginia.edu
+1 (724) 493-0763

Department of Astronomy
University of Virginia
530 McCormick Road, P.O. Box 400325
Charlottesville, VA 22904
United States of America