TAP Lectureships

The TAP Lectureship series features visiting theorists who are experts in one of 6 key TAP Initiative research areas: Computation and Data, Cosmology, Dynamics, Gravity, Planet Formation, and Plasma Physics. The TAP Initiatives are designed to enable interdisciplinary conversations among theorists, observers, and experimentalists on these topics.

TAP Lecturers will visit for up to two weeks and give a TAP Lecture. Our goal with these Lectureships is to bring in an external expert to spearhead conversations and collaborations. We encourage you to sign up to have relevant Lecturers join your group meetings and/or meet with you/your students/postdocs.

The TAP Program features five interdisciplinary initiatives to focus scientific discussions and advance significant proposal development efforts involving multiple scientists across Astronomy, Physics, Planetary Science, and relevant partnering departments, institutes, centers, units, and interdisciplinary programs. Several new Initiatives are anticipated to be developed in the next few years to represent better the breadth of science conducted in TAP departments and advance ongoing/future experimental, computing, and observational efforts.

The TAP Cosmology Initiative combines theory, computation, and data-driven astrophysicists to tackle some of the most pressing problems in Cosmology and Fundamental Physics, including the Nature of Dark Energy and Dark Matter, using next-generation computational simulations, codes, and observational surveys.

Initiative Leads

Peter Behroozi

Associate Professor, Department of Astronomy, & Associate Astronomer, Steward Observatory

Tim Eifler

Associate Professor, Department of Astronomy, & Associate Astronomer, Steward Observatory

Eduardo Rozo

Associate Professor of Physics

The TAP Computation and Data Initiative (CDI) brings together computation and data scientists with astrophysicists to push the forefront of and accelerate discovery in theoretical astrophysics. The Initiative provides a platform for researchers from different disciplines to collaborate, share resources, develop new methods, and apply them to significant problems. It also trains students to become the new generation of “computation native” scientists.

Initiative Leads

CK Chan

Assistant Research Professor/Data Science Institute Fellow, Steward Observatory

Ann Zabludoff

Professor, Astronomy

The TAP Dynamics Initiative brings together dynamicists to tackle fundamental problems in dynamics across a vast range of physical scales, from the motions of dark matter particles in galactic halos, to the dynamics of planetary and stellar bodies, all the way to galactic collisions.

Initiative Leads

Kate Daniel

Associate Professor of Astronomy

Kaitlin Kratter

Professor of Astronomy

Renu Malhotra

Professor, Planetary Sciences

The TAP Gravity Initiative brings together researchers from astronomy and physics to study the fundamental laws of gravity and their manifestation in the observable universe, primarily in the extreme environments of black holes and neutron stars. Our members perform theoretical, computational, and observational studies of these extreme physical systems.

Initiative Leads

	Sam Gralla Associate Professor of Physics
	Vasileios Paschalidis Assistant Professor of Astronomy and Physics

The TAP Planet Formation Initiative studies theories of the formation and evolution of the Solar System and exoplanet systems.

Initiative Leads

Andrew Youdin, TAP Deputy Chair

Associate Professor, Department of Astronomy & Associate Astronomer, Steward Observatory

Erik Asphaug

Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, Professor

The TAP Plasma Physics Initiative (PPI) uses theory and numerical simulation, combined with remote and in situ observations of space and astrophysical plasmas, to constrain fundamental questions about how energy, mass, and momentum are injected into, transported through, and removed from a wide variety of plasma systems throughout the Universe.

Initiative Lead