Biography

Ben Sugerman
Department: Physics and Astronomy
Title: Visiting Professor of Physics (2006)
Degree: B.A., Occidental College; Ph.D., Columbia University
Office: Hoffberger G19
Phone: 410-337-6555
Email: ben.sugerman@goucher.edu
Website: http://blogs.goucher.edu/bsugerman/

Dr. Sugerman's research focuses on what happens to stars immediately before or after they die. He is one of the world's experts on "scattered-light echoes," where the light pulse created from the catastrophic explosion of a massive star (called a supernova) is used to study otherwise invisible structure in the surrounding regions of space. He is also actively studying whether supernovae produce space dust, which has important implications for the evolution of the first stars and galaxies at the very beginning of the Universe. He is also very interested in how stars like the sun produce richly-structured and highly-asymmetric nebulae. He has published numerous research articles in The Astrophysical Journal, The Astronomical Journal, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, and Science, and has presented papers and review talks at conferences all over the world. He regularly uses the Hubble and Spitzer Space Telescopes as well as ground-based facilities in Arizona, Chile, and Hawaii, and has received extensive funding for his research projects with these observatories. Dr. Sugerman received his Ph.D. from Columbia University in 2003, and was a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, MD, for three years before joining the faculty at Goucher College. He is pictured above with his favorite lab assistant, Milo.