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Erin Cox

CIERA, Northwestern University

Research Focus
About Erin

I study the earliest phase of star and planet formation (i.e., Class 0 objects). I am interested in understanding the flow of material from the inner protostellar envelope onto the disk. I’m also interested in better understanding the formation pathways of binary star systems, and how this affects the subsequent planets in the system. Binary stars are thought to have two formation pathways that can lead to either wide or close systems, however the two protostars can migrate early in their lives, thus affecting the surrounding material that will eventually make planets.

I use a multi-wavelength (from the VLA — cm waves — to ALMA — mm waves — to NIR telescopes) approach in researching these areas, including using polarization observations. Polarization observations are quite powerful because they provide useful information about the magnetic field and need to be highly sensitive so we obtain exquisite dust maps of our targets.


Honors

2022 - NSF MPS-Ascend Postdoctoral Fellowship

2019 - ALMA Ambassador

2019 - Robert L. Brown Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation Award

2018 - Rodger Doxsey Travel Prize

2015 - Illinois Space Grant

2014 - Excellent Teacher Award

2012 - Undergraduate Research Achievement Award


Education
Postdoc

CIERA, Northwestern University, 08/2018

Ph.D.

Astronomy, University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, 08/2018

Bachelor's

Physics, Astronomy, University of Arizona, 05/2012

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