My research focuses on the early stages of the star forming process where there
is still a dense envelope of gas and dust infalling onto the forming disk and protostar.

My main research interests are:
 I employ a wide variety of observational techniques to examine these aspects of the star formation process. Most recently I have been undertaking large surveys of protostellar objects and submillimeter, millimeter, and centimeter wavelengths. See the link at the top for the VANDAM survey of the Perseus molecular cloud, a 264 hour VLA survey of all known protostars in Perseus (~90).

The example below shows the complementary view of protostellar disk formation from submillimeter, millimeter, and mid-infrared wavelengths.
 
L1527 millimeter 
Images of the Disk around L1527 at 870 micron from the SMA (left), CARMA at 3.4 mm (middle),
and Gemini at 3.8 micron (right). The images show that the disk is clearly resolved
in the radial direction at all wavelengths. The following image shows the larger-scale
mid-infrared imaging.


The following example shows the large-scale view of a protostellar envelope in absorption against the mid-infrared background. The diffuse, knotty feautres extending in the vertical direction reflect shock-excited emission in the protostellar outflow, while the flat/dark region in the middle of the image reflects the envelope around the protostar.

L1157-IRAC
IRAC image of the protostar L1157, the dense, flattened envelope
surrounding the protostar is shown by the dark regions
against the red backgroud.