UC Berkeley Astronomy Department

Eliot Quataert

Professor of Astronomy & Physics
Thomas & Alison Schneider Chair in Physics

UC Berkeley
Astronomy Department
B-20 Hearst Field Annex #3411
Berkeley, CA 94720-3411

Office: C-13 HFA (B-20 is mailing address)
Phone: 510-642-3792
eliot{at}astro.berkeley.edu

Research

I am a theoretical astrophysicist with interests in a wide variety of problems, including black holes, stellar physics, plasma astrophysics, and galaxy formation.

I am the director of Berkeley's Theoretical Astrophysics Center and a member of the executive committee of the Miller Institute for Basic Research in Science.

My publications can be found here (at arxiv.org) or here (at ADS).

Curriculum vitae Short Academic Bio

Here is a (now out-of-date) review on Black Hole Accretion for Science magazine.

Although I greatly enjoy theoretical physics research, I have a confession ....

(I am not yet a member of this dept ...)

Talks

2011 Biermann Lectures (MPA):   The Physics of Galaxy Cluster Plasmas
                                                        Feedback During Galaxy Formation
                                                        Searching for the Electromagnetic Counterparts to Gravitational Wave Sources

The Thermal Stability of Galaxy Cluster Plasmas
Short-Duration Gamma-ray Bursts
New Forms of Convection in Galaxy Cluster Plasmas
The Transient Revolution
The Heating and Acceleration of the Solar Wind
The FIR-Radio Correlation & Gamma-ray Emission from Star-Forming Galaxies
Gamma-ray Bursts from the Birth of Magnetars
Accretion in the Galactic Center
A Public Talk on Black Holes

Jobs/Students

Postdoctoral: The Theoretical Astrophysics Center at UC Berkeley has several prize postdoctoral fellowships.

Graduate & Undergraduate: I am happy to talk with interested students at any time.

Previous Undergraduate Students: Naveed Ahmad, Keaton Burns

Current Graduate Students:   Josh Burkart, Josh Shiode, Mike McCourt, Josiah Schwab, Jacob Lynn, Daniel Lecoanet

Previous Graduate Students: Prateek Sharma (IIsc), Mike Boylan-Kolchin (Irvine), Brian Metzger (Princeton), Linda Strubbe (CITA), Jackson DeBuhr

UCB Postdocs I am currently collaborating with: Phil Hopkins, Ken Shen, Claude-Andre Faucher-Giguere, Jason Dexter, Tobi Heinemann

Postdocs I have previously collaborated with: Todd Thompson (OSU), Bryan Johnson (Livermore), Greg Howes (Iowa), Phil Chang (Univ. Wisconsin,
                                                                           Milwaukee), Niccolo Bucciantini (Arcetri), Tony Piro (Caltech), Prateek Sharma (IIsc),
                                                                           Nevin Weinberg (MIT), Mario Riquelme (Univ. of Chile), Ian Parrish

Teaching

Astro 7A: Introduction to Astrophysics

Astro 160: Stellar Physics

Astro 252: Stellar Structure and Evolution

Astro 202: Astrophysical Gas Dynamics

Astro 250: Special Topics in Astrophysics: Accretion Disks

Astro 292: Special Topics in Astrophysics: The Formation and Evolution of Massive Black Holes

Astro 24: Black Holes: The Science Behind the Science Fiction

Personal

I was born in Santa Monica, California on June 19, 1973, lived for almost 12 years in Houston,Texas, and spent my high school years in Vestal, New York (upstate near the border between NY and PA). I received my B.S. in Physics from MIT in 1995 (carrying out research with Pawan Kumar) and my Ph. D. in Astronomy from Harvard University in 1999 (under the supervision of Ramesh Narayan). I was a postdoc in the School of Natural Sciences at the Institute for Advanced Study for 2 years before coming to Berkeley in 2001.

I live in Berkeley with Bethany Hoffman -- we enjoy, among other things, the outdoors & food.