The Hubble/WFC3 Test of Surfaces in the Outer Solar System (H/WTSOSS) is a large survey designed to connect the surfaces of objects in the Kuiper belt with their dynamical history in order to help piece together the early history of the outer solar system. (Fraser, Brown)

With the major surveys for bright objects in the northern hemisphere complete, we are turning to the south. The Uppsala survey is an attempt to use a shallow but extremely thorough NEO survey of the southern hemisphere to find the very brightest Kuiper belt objects. Skymapper will be a large deeper survey which will discover many new things in the southern hemisphere, including bright Kuiper belt objects. (Bannister, Brown)

The Kuiper Belt on a Beowulf (KBOB) project is attempting to use massively parallel coputing to explore possible starting conditions for the early solar system that lead to the Kuiper belt we see today. (Batygin, Brown)

The Kuiper Belt on a GPU (KBOG) project expands on the KBOB project to exploit the power of GPUs to perform specialized gravitational calculations to explore the effects of self-gravity in the proto-planetary disk. We are currently constructing a specialized high-powered multi-GPU water-cooled machine which, when not being used to explain the solar system, will play DOOM like nothing else around. (Fraser, Batygin, Brown)

The Figuring Out the Cold Classicals (FOCC) project is attempting to understand the origin of the cold classical population of Kuiper belt objects through a combined observational and computation program designed to determine the characteristics of this population and where objects with these characteristics could have originated. (Batygin, Fraser, Brown)

Namaka, the smallest satellite of Haumea, is currently undergoing transits, eclipses, and occultations with Haumea. Measuring and timing of these events will provide an oppotunity to measure parameters of the Haumean system with staggering accuracy. (Brown, Fraser, Ragozzine, Bannister, Schwamb, Schaller)

The discovery of large bodies in the outer solar system over the past few years has led to a revolution in our understanding of the formation and evolution of the distant parts of our planetary environment. The large Kuiper belt objects preserve signatures of run away growth, giant impacts, volatile depletion and retention, and heating and differentiation. We continue to exploit ground and space-based telescopes to study every aspect of these fascinating bodies. (Brown, Fraser)

Ph.D., Planetary Science, 2010
NSF Astronomy & Astrophysics Postdoctoral Fellow, Yale University

Ph.D., Planetary Science, 2009
Postdoctoral Fellow, CfA

Ph.D., Planetary Science, 2008
Hubble Fellow, University of Arizona

Ph.D., Planetary Science, 2007

Ph.D., Planetary Science, 2004
Keck Observatory
Palomar Adaptive Optics Lead, Caltech Optical Observatories
Adaptive Optics Lead, The Carnegie Observatories

Ph.D., Physics, 2001
Hubble Postdoctoral Fellow, UCLA
Spitzer Postdoctoral Fellow, AMNH
Professor, MIT
Professor, UCSD

Ph.D. 2000, Astronomy
Michelson Fellow, CfA
Hubble Fellow, Princeton University
Astrophysicist, Goddard Space Flight Center