Lee Hartmann

Biosketch

Lee Hartmann is Leo Goldberg Collegiate Professor Emeritus in Astronomy at the mUniversity of MIchigan. He earned his BS in Astronomy from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland Ohio and his PhD in Astronomy from the University of Wisconsin at Madison. He was a postdoctoral fellow at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and then became a research scientist in 1984 in the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. He then joined the Astronomy faculty of the University of Michigan in 2005 and became Collegiate Professor in 2011. Hartmann is a member of the NAS, a fellow of the AAS and of the American Astronomical Society, and was vice-president of the AAS from 2007-10. He was Chair of the Science Frontier Panel on Planetary Systems and Star Formation for the Astro2010 Decadal survey of the NAS, and was also Chair of the Science Panel on the Interstellar Medium and Star and Planet Formation for the Astro2020 Decadal Survey for the NAS. He was also Chair and Vice Chair for Gorden Research Conferenses on Origins of Solar Systems, and Chair of the National Optical Astronomy Observatory visiting committee in 2012-13.

Research Interests

Dr. Hartmann's research is aimed at understanding star and planet formation. These areas of research are linked by the circumstellar disks from which much if not most of a star's mass is accreted and in which planets form. His research is characterized by using combining observational results with simple theoretical considerations to test ideas of how stars and disks form and evolve. Dr. Hartmann has investigated the flows of matter from disks to stars and the ejection from of matter from the star-disk system. He led early studies of the structure of disks, helping to understand their temperature structure and make predictions for their evolution in time, with implications for planet formation. Dr. Hartmann's study of disks that exhibit extreme outbursts of accretion onto their central stars has led to insights into the complex processes of mass transport. The high temperatures resulting from these bursts of accretion in otherwise cold disks may have signatures in the processing of planetary materials, including solar system solids. His work led to a new paradigm of star formation, in which the previous picture of slow evolution is replaced by one in which the collapse of molecular gas to form stars is rapid and dynamic as the result of the global effects of self-gravity. His book, "Accretion Processes in Star Formation", is a standard text in the field.