David R. Ardila
 
Assistant Research Scientist
Spitzer Science Center
California Institute of Technology
1200 E. California Blvd
Mail Stop 220-6
Pasadena, CA 91125
 
Office:     KS-285
Phone:    626-395-1945
Fax:         626-583-9046
Email:     ardila AT ipac.caltech.edu
 
Research Interests:
Planet Formation: Observations and modeling of debris disks, timescales of planet formation. Coronagraphic observations of circumstellar disks. Hydrodynamical simulations of dust-gas interactions.
Star Formation: Observations and modeling of the accretion process in T Tauri and Herbig Ae/Be stars. Angular momentum evolution. Extension of the accretion paradigm to lower stellar masses. Line emission in high temperature plasmas.
 
Publications:
 
 
Current Projects:
  1. • The Spitzer Spectroscopic Stellar Atlas: The HR diagram as seen by Spitzer
  2. • The Accretion Shock in Classical T Tauri Stars: How to explain those pesky UV lines
  3. • A Search for Debris Disks in the Beta Pictoris Moving Group: Looking for extrasolar Kuiper Belts in all the right places
  4. • Gas in protoplanetary Systems (GASPs): A Herschel key project
  5. • Cold Disks around Nearby Stars. A Search for Edgeworth-Kuiper Belt analogues (DUNES: DUst disks around NEarby Stars): Another Herschel key project
About me:
I am an astronomer (Ph.D. Physics, UC Berkeley, 2002) with the Spitzer Space Telescope, one of NASA’s Great Observatories, managed by Caltech.
 
Within Spitzer, I work for the Infrared Spectrograph Instrument Team and the Science User Support Team. I am in charge of the calibrating of the Peak-Up Imaging Arrays, monitoring the success of Peak-Up Acquisitions, writing documentation about it all, performing technical reviews for accepted proposals, monitoring bright-object limits, and maintaining a few webpages.