Carnegie Fellow Christopher Stark joined DTM last week, following the receipt of his Ph.D. this past spring at the University of Maryland. Stark researches the interactions between exoplanets and debris disks. Using novel numerical tools that he developed during his thesis research, he models the orbital evolution of dust in planetary systems. This dust, produced from collisions between asteroids and the outgassing of comets, spreads throughout the planetary system, forming a tenuous dusty disk. Planets present in the disk gravitationally interact with the dust and can sculpt large, intricate patterns into the dust disk. These structured patterns, if observed in another system, could help us locate planets and constrain their mass and orbit.

While at DTM, Stark will work with Alycia Weinberger, John Chambers, and Alan Boss to model these disk structures. He is interested in determining whether these structures could affect imaging of exoplanets and in identifying new ways to detect and interpret such structures.