Eugene Chiang
Associate Professor of Astronomy
Associate Professor of Earth and Planetary Science
PhD 2000 (California Institute of Technology)
Campus address and phone:
601 Campbell Hall
(510) 642-2131
Email:
Website:
http://astro.berkeley.edu/~echiang/
Specialty areas:
Astronomy, Theoretical Astrophysics, Dynamics, Planetary Systems,
Protoplanetary and Debris Disks, Kuiper Belt, Order-of-Magnitude Physics
Research projects:
Theoretical astrophysics, with an emphasis on understanding the origin of planetary systems. Current research areas include protoplanetary disks; debris disks, including the Kuiper belt; planet-disk interaction; planetesimal and planet formation; hydrodynamic instabilities in disks; photoionized winds from extrasolar giant planets; planetary dynamics; and the dynamics of stars orbiting supermassive black holes in galactic nuclei.
Biography:
Eugene Chiang has lifelong interests in astrophysics, physics, and the humanities, especially the dramatic arts. The most challenging but most rewarding class he teaches is order-of-magnitude physics, in which the class tries to estimate any quantity under the sun to within a factor of 10.