Biography
Adam is a fourth-year Ph.D. candidate. He has a B.S. in Physics (Astrophysics) from UC Santa Cruz.
Research
Adam's research revolves around exoplanets and exoplanet characterization. He is currently involved in a survey aimed at understanding the population statistics of wide-separation brown dwarf companions to B- and A-type stars. As a precursor to characterizing detected companions, he is working on developing reliable age estimate methods for the systems in question by comparing the color-magnitude diagram position of the primary star in each system to model isochrones. He is also using the Apache Point Observatory's ARCES echelle spectrograph instrument to constrain metalicity and vsini for these stars, in order to mitigate age uncertainties that marginalizing over these parameters introduces.
Publications
- Smith et al. (2020) “Detecting and Characterizing Water Vapor in the Atmospheres of Earth Analogs through Observation of the 0.94 μm Feature in Reflected Light”
- Smith et al. (2021) "Utilizing a Database of Simulated Geometric Albedo Spectra for Photometric Characterization of Rocky Exoplanet Atmospheres"
Meetings Attended
- AAS 231, 233, and 235
- SEEC Symposium, Fall 2019
- Exoplanets IV, Summer 2022
- Protostars & Planets VII, Spring 2023
Teaching and Outreach Activities
Adam is not currently involved in any teaching activities.
- Lab Instructor / TA, ASTR 110G Introduction to Astronomy, Fall 2020
- Lab Instructor / TA, ASTR 1115G The Planets, Spring 2021
- Lab Instructor / TA, ASTR 1120G Introduction to Astronomy, Fall 2021
- Lab Instructor / TA, ASTR 1120G The Planets, Spring 2022
