(2016 SHINE Workshop) L to R: L. Woolsey, S. Van Kooten, A. Schiff, S. Cranmer, C. Gilly (2024) standing: T. Simon, A. Lattimer, S. Cranmer, D. Mendoza; in front: P. Tatum, K. Kenny, G. Strus

Current Students

  • I started working with CU APS graduate student Garyfallia Strus in the spring of 2024, on projects involving plasma waves and turbulence in the solar wind.

  • I started working with CU APS undergraduate student Trestan Simon in the spring of 2024, on a project involving data analysis from heliospheric plasma and field instruments that will help constrain future models of the solar wind.

  • I've been working with CU APS graduate student Daniel Mendoza since the summer of 2023, on projects involving the solar coronal heating problem and the testing of magnetic-field extrapolation techniques.

  • I've been working with CU APS graduate student Aylecia Lattimer since summer 2019, on projects involving the atomic physics of radiatively driven flows in a wide range of astrophysical environments.

  • I've been serving as the departmental advisor for CU APS graduate student Kenny Kenny since 2021. Kenny is working with Dr. Craig DeForest at the Southwest Research Institute on the analysis of visible-light images of the heliosphere from the WISPR instrument on Parker Solar Probe, and on similar analysis for the upcoming PUNCH mission.

Past Students

  • From 2016 to 2022, I advised CU APS graduate student Chris Gilly, who completed his dissertation work on how flows and magnetic fields in the solar corona can be probed by measuring emission lines with space-based spectrometers.
    • Gilly's PhD thesis on ADS

  • From 2016 to 2022, I advised (jointly with Kevin Reardon at NSO) CU APS graduate student Momchil "Momo" Molnar, who completed his dissertation work on the topic of waves in the chromosphere and corona, with observations from ALMA, IRIS, and the Dunn Solar Telescope.
    • Momo's PhD thesis on ADS

  • From 2016 to 2021, I advised CU APS graduate student Sam Van Kooten, who completed his dissertation work on how the motions of magnetic bright points in the Sun's atmosphere contribute to waves and plasma heating higher up in the corona.

  • From 2015 to 2020, I advised CU APS graduate student Avery Schiff, who completed her dissertation work on an interesting mix of theoretical topics that involved thermal conduction in the solar corona.

  • From 2011 to 2016, I advised Harvard University graduate student Lauren Woolsey, who completed her dissertation work on models of the acceleration of the solar wind. Lauren is now an Assistant Professor at Grand Rapids Community College.

  • In Fall 2015, I supervised a research project for CU senior undergraduate student Jacob Jost on the topic of the line-of-sight effect in off-limb observations of MHD turbulence in the solar corona.

  • In Spring and Summer 2018, I supervised research projects for CU undergraduate student Shaniya Jarrett on: (1) plasma fluctuations in the solar wind at 1 AU, and (2) atomic physics of spectral lines that drive winds of massive stars.

 
Academic Genealogy

The academic world is one of the few remaining professions which still operates (for good or ill!) on the time-honored system of apprentices and mentors. Is it possible to see traces of an advisor, or an advisor's advisor, or an advisor's advisor's advisor... in a scientist's work? In any case, there are various web pages that attempt to gather together this kind of genealogical information, but it hasn't quite taken hold in astrophysics as much as it has in, say, mathematics. Thus, I'm not sure if this is of interest to anyone besides me...

  • Steven R. Cranmer recieved his Ph.D. in 1996 from the University of Delaware. Thesis title: "Dynamical Models of Winds from Rotating Hot Stars" (lots more info about it here).   His advisor was...

  • Stanley P. Owocki (web page), who received his Ph.D. in 1982 from the University of Colorado Boulder. Thesis title: "The Ionization State of the Solar Wind."   His advisor was...

  • Thomas E. Holzer, who received his Ph.D. in 1970 from the University of California, San Diego. Thesis title: "Stellar Winds and Related Flows."   His advisor was...

  • Well, here it starts to get complicated. Tom Holzer's official university advisor was UCSD's Peter M. Banks. Holzer and Banks wrote some very highly cited papers together. However, the story as I heard it was that Banks was mainly an "on-paper" advisor, and that Holzer's primary mentor for his thesis was really...

  • Sir W. Ian Axford (wikipedia), who received his Ph.D. in 1959 from the University of Manchester, UK. Thesis title: "Some Problems in Fluid Dynamics."   His advisor was...

  • Sir M. James Lighthill (wikipedia), who graduated from Trinity College, Cambridge in 1943, and was elected a fellow of Trinity College in 1945. I still haven't figured out whether or not he had a formal advisor in the modern sense. However, there is a fun way to trace his "lineage" even further back in time. In 1969, Lighthill became the 16th Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge. His predecessors in the Lucasian "Chair" included Paul Dirac, George Stokes, Charles Babbage, George Airy, and...

  • Sir Isaac Newton!

 
Erdős Number

Mathematicians enjoy measuring their "collaborative distance" to the famous Paul Erdős, and enough astronomers have collaborated with mathematicians that it's possible to compute our Erdős numbers, too.

As best as I can tell, my Erdős number is no larger than 5, with the shortest chain of coauthorships being:

S. R. Cranmer (5) → George B. Field (4) → John N. Bahcall (3) → Freeman J. Dyson (2) → Dean Robert Hickerson (1) → Paul Erdős