Faculty Directory
| Department Chair: Raja Guha Thakurta | Department Manager: position is vacant |
| Undergraduate Program Director: Jonathan Fortney | Graduate Advisor: Lindsay Lauver |
| Graduate Program: Brant Robertson | Administrative Assistant: position is vacant |
| Administrative Assistant, Astrobiology Institute: Deana Tanguay |
- Title
- Professor
- Division Physical & Biological Sciences Division
- Department
- Astronomy & Astrophysics Department
- UC Observatories
- Phone 831-459-2976
- Website
- Office Location
- ISB 259
- Mail Stop UCO / Lick Observatory
- Faculty Areas of Expertise Physics
Research Interests
Woosley's twin interests in the origin of the elements and the death of massive stars have led him to do theoretical work in a diverse set of fields. On the one hand, he studies nucleosynthetic "processes", the nuclear physics and theoretical astrophysics whereby the jigsaw puzzle of abundances that we see in stars and in ourselves has been assembled. This requires a firm grounding in nuclear physics, but also a thorough understanding of the lives of stars and their deaths as supernovae. Since the latter is poorly understood, Woosley and his many collaborators also use supercomputers and develop the necessary software to study supernovae and gamma-ray bursts of all types. Woosley proposed the "collapsar" model for gamma-ray bursts and was a co-investigator on the High Energy Transient Explorer that studied them.
Biography, Education and Training
BA Physics Rice University 1966
PhD Space Science Rice University 1971. Thesis adviser Don Clayton
Postdoctoral Researcher Kellog Lab, CalTech 1972-1975. Adviser Willy Fowler
Faculty UCSC Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics 1975 - Present
American Academy Arts and Sciences 2001
National Academy of Sciences 2006
