Carnegie Fellow and NAI Fellow Fred Ciesla departed DTM on 16 May to begin an assistant professor position at the Department of the Geophysical Sciences of The University of Chicago. During his time at DTM, Ciesla researched the formation of our Solar System by developing and applying models for the evolution of dust and small bodies in protoplanetary disks in order to interpret and understand materials seen in meteorites and comets. Specifically, he examined how the growth and transport of dust can help scientists explain the observed chemical and mineralogic properties of chondritic meteorites and high-temperature materials collected by the Stardust spacecraft. To carry out this research, Ciesla worked on demonstrating the importance of considering the vertical structure of a protoplanetary disk, a notion that has often been overlooked in previous modeling efforts.

At Chicago, Ciesla plans to continue linking astrophysics and cosmochemistry in his research in order to build a more unified understanding of how planetary systems form.