Ilse Cleeves
Assistant Professor of Astronomy and Chemistry
Office Address/Hours
Room 231, Astronomy Building
Education
B.S. Rice University, 2009
Ph.D. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 2015
Biography
Hubble Fellow at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in the Radio and Geoastronomy Division at Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and the Harvard Institute for Theory and Computation, 2015-2018
My research focuses on understanding the molecular and physical origins of planetary systems such as our own. By using clues from interstellar molecular emission, I study young planetary systems in formation around low-mass stars, i.e. protoplanetary disks: the very materials from which planets, comets, and other solar system bodies eventually form.
While I focus on the theoretical modeling of these systems, my work is guided by observational results from the Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array, the Submillimeter Array as well as the Herschel Space Observatory. In addition to clues from the astronomical data, our group furthermore endeavors to connect all scales by incorporating our knowledge of the primitive solar nebula from the cometary and meteoritic record.
Recent Publications
"Constraining Gas-phase Carbon, Oxygen, and Nitrogen in the IM Lup Protoplanetary Disk," Cleeves, Oberg, Wilner, Huang, Loomis, Andrews, Guzman, 2018, ApJ, 865, 155.
"Variable H13CO+ Emission in the IM Lup Disk: X-ray Driven Time-Dependent Chemistry?," Cleeves, Bergin, Oberg, Andrews, Wilner, and Loomis, 2017, ApJL, 843, 1.
"Multiple Carbon Monoxide Snow-lines in Disks Sculpted by Radial Drift" Cleeves, 2016, ApJL, 816, 21.
"Indirect Detection of Forming Protoplanets via Chemical Asymmetries in Disks," Cleeves, Bergin, Harries, 2015, ApJ, 707, 2.
"The ancient heritage of water ice in the solar system," Cleeves, Bergin, Alexander, Du, Graninger, Oberg, and Harries, 2014, Science, 345, 1590.