Personal web page 

Dr. Holtzman was a full-time faculty member at NMSU from 1995 to 2024, and continues to work on several projects in the Department of Astronomy as an Emeritus Professor.

Research

Dr. Holtzman has interests in the fields of stars, stellar populations, the structure of galaxies, and cosmology.

Dr. Holtzman has been actively involved with several Sloan Digital Sky Survey projects. He was actively involved with the SDSS-II supernova survey, and spent a lot of time working with the SDSS APOGEE survey: he was the Survey Scientist for the SDSS-IV APOGEE-2 survey. APOGEE was a survey designed to study stars in the Milky Way and some nearby galaxies, using the tool of high resolution near-infrared spectroscopy. He was Commissioning Scientist for the SDSS-V project. SDSS/APOGEE has provided data for the dissertations of multiple graduate students at NMSU.

He has been an experienced user of the Hubble Space Telescope, and participated as a member of the Instrument Definition Teams for the WF/PC and WFPC2 cameras, and was a member of the Science Oversight Committee for the planned WFC3 camera. He has studied the history of galaxy assembly of nearby galaxies by deriving star formation histories based on the distribution of stars in color-magnitude diagrams. He is also interested in working on incorporating observed chemical abundances in an attempt to derive a self-consistent model of the star formation and chemical evolution history of nearby galaxies. He has also worked on more distant galaxies, attempting to understand the mechanisms of spiral galaxy formation through studies of their structure and integrated stellar populations. He has also worked on young, massive, compact clusters in external galaxies.

Dr. Holtzman also has interests in observational techniques and instrumentation. He has been the Project Scientist for the ARC 3.5m Telescope. He was responsible for the operation of the original NMSU 1.0m Telescope at Apache Point Observatory and is playing a key role in establishing robotic operations with the Planewave 1.0m and the construction and operation of the SONG spectrograph. He has led efforts to restart usage of the Tortugas Mt. Observatory.

Graduate students

• Alexander Stone-Martinez, PhD, 2025, "Pushing the Boundaries of Stellar Age & Distance Estimation with Advanced Machine Learning Techniques"
• Julie Imig, PhD, 2023, "A Galactic Self-Portrait: Chemical Cartography, Density Structure, and Integrated Properties of the Milky Way Disk"
• Drew Chojnowski, PhD, 2020, “H-Band Spectroscopy of Exotic Massive Stars”
• Sten Hasselquist, PhD, 2018, “Chemical Abundances of the Milky Way and Sagittarius Using APOGEE”
• Diane Feuillet, PhD, 2016, “Ages and Abundances of Local Galactic Stellar Populations”
• Teresa Ross, PhD, 2015 “Exploring stellar metallicities in dwarf galaxies and their implications”
• Michael Hayden, PhD, 2015. “Chemical cartography of the Milky Way disk with the SDSS-III/APOGEE survey”
• Dan Oravetz, MS, 2015 “Searching for metallicity spread in five galactic star clusters “
• MJ Clark, MS, 2012
• Bhasker Moorthy, PhD, 2006, “Bulges of Spiral Galaxies: Stellar Populations, Structure, Kinematics, and Dynamics"
• Pey-Lian Lim, MS, 2006, “High-resolution spectroscopy of a volume-limited Hipparcos sample within 100 parsec”
• Sarah Bates, MS, 2005, “Sloan Digital Sky Survey photometry for globular clusters in M31 and five newly discovered globular clusters “
• Hector Noriega, MS, 2004
• Salman Hameed, PhD 2001 (coadvise)
• Chris Garasi, PhD 2001 (coadvise)
• Nathaniel Paust, MS, 2000, “The star formation history of the local Milky Way”
• Matthew Carlson, PhD, 1999, “Young globular clusters in interacting galaxies”
• Marla Geha, MS, 1998

Teaching

Dr. Holtzman taught both undergraduate and graduate classes. At the undergraduate level, he was a popular teacher for Introductory Astronomy (ASTR 110). At the graduate level, he taught the Observational Techniques (ASTR 535) graduate class for many years, a gradiate class on Galaxies (ASTR 555), and also a class on Numerical and Statistical Methods in Astronomy (ASTR 630);. He had led seminars on well-cited papers in astronomy, the Science Behind the SDSS-II Supernova Survey, Nucleosynthesis, and Globular Clusters, among others.

Selected publications (student authors denoted by *): 

SDSS-IV MaStar: Data-driven Parameter Derivation for the MaStar Stellar Library, Imig*, J., Holtzman, J.A., Yan, R., et al, AJ 163, 56 (2022)

Chemical Cartography with APOGEE: Mapping Disk Populations with a 2-process Model and Residual Abundances, Weinberg, D.H., Holtzman, J.A., Johnson, J.A., et al, ApJS 260, 32 (2022)

APOGEE Data and Spectral Analysis from SDSS Data Release 16: Seven Years of Observations Including First Results from APOGEE-South, Jönnson, H., Holtzman, J.A., et al, AJ 160, 120 (2020)

Chemical Cartography with APOGEE: Multi-element Abundance Ratios, Weinberg, D. H., Holtzman, J A., Hasselquist*, S., et al, ApJ 2019, 874 (2019)

APOGEE [C/N] Abundances across the Galaxy: Migration and Infall from Red Giant Ages, Hasselquist*, S., Holtzman, J. A., Shetrone, M. ApJ 871, 181 (2019)

APOGEE Data Releases 13 and 14: Data and Analysis, Holtzman, J. A., Hasselquist*, S., Shetrone, M., et al, AJ 156, 125 (2018)

Age-resolved chemistry of red giants in the solar neighbourhood, Feuillet*, D.K., Bovy, J., Holtzman, J.A., et al, MNRAS 477, 2326 (2018)

Determining Ages of APOGEE Giants with Known Distances, Feuillet*, D.K., Bovy, J., Holtzman, J.A., et al, ApJ 817, 40 (2016)

Abundances, Stellar Parameters, and Spectra from the SDSS-III/APOGEE Survey, Holtzman, J.A., et al, AJ 150, 148 (2015)

Chemical Cartography with APOGEE: Metallicity Distribution Functions and the Chemical Structure of the Milky Way Disk, Hayden*, M.R., Bovy, J. Holtzman, J.A., et al ApJ 808, 132 (2015)

Metallicity Distribution Functions of Four Local Group Dwarf Galaxies, Ross*, T.L, Holtzman, J.A. et al, AJ 149, 198 (2015)

Chemical Cartography with APOGEE: Large-scale Mean Metallicity Maps of the Milky Way Disk, Hayden*, M.R., Holtzman, J.A., et al, AJ 147, 116 (2014)

Calibrations of Atmospheric Parameters Obtained from the First Year of SDSS-III APOGEE Observations, Meszaros, S., Holtzman, J.A. et al, AJ 146, 133 (2013)

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey-II Photometry and Supernova IA Light Curves from the 2005 Data, Holtzman, J.A., et al, AJ 136, 2306 (2008)

The Local Group Stellar Populations Archive From The Hubble Space Telescope Wide Field Planetary Camera 2, Holtzman, J.A., Afonso, C., & Dolphin A., ApJS 166, 534 (2006)

The Properties of Galaxies in Voids, Patiri, S., Prada, F., Holtzman, J.A., Klypin, A., & Betancourt-Rijo, J., MNRAS (2006)

Stellar Populations in Bulges of Spiral Galaxies, Moorthy*, B. & Holtzman, J.A., MNRAS 371, 583 (2006)

Structure of Disk Dominated Galaxies I. Bulge/Disk Parameters, Simulations, and Secular Evolution, MacArthur, L.A., Courteau, S., & Holtzman, J. A. 2003, ApJ, 584, 931

Population Gradients in Local Group Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxies, Harbeck, D., Grebel, E.K., Holtzman, J.A., Guhathakura, P., Brandner, W., Geisler, D., Sarajedini, A., Dolphin, A., Hurley-Keller, D., & Mateo, M. 2001, AJ, 122, 3092

Stellar Populations in the Phoenix Dwarf (dIrr/dSph) Galaxy as Observed by HST/WFPC2, Holtzman, J.A., Smith, G.H., & Grillmair, C. 2000, AJ, 120, 3060