Imke de Pater
Astronomy/Earth & Planetary Science, University of California, Berkeley
Research Focus
About Imke
Imke de Pater is a Professor in the Departments of Astronomy and of Earth and Planetary Science at UC Berkeley. She started her career observing and modeling Jupiter’s synchrotron radiation, followed by detailed investigations of the planet’s thermal radio emission. In 1994 she led a world-wide campaign observing the impact of comet D/Shoemaker-Levy 9 with Jupiter. She is exploiting Adaptive Optics techniques in the infrared range to obtain high angular resolution data of e.g. volcanic activity on Io, planetary rings, and giant planets. She is using the VLA and ALMA to obtain longitude-resolved maps of the four giant planets, and She combines this with IR and visible data to investigate their atmospheres. She explains her data in detail using radiative transfer models developed in her group. She wrote 2 books with Jack Lissauer: “Planetary Sciences” and “Fundamental Planetary Science. Physics, Chemistry and Habitability” (Cambridge Univ. Press).
Honors
AAS Chambliss Award for Writing
AGU Fellow
Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellow
C.J. Kok award
Faculty Mentoring Award, UC Berkeley
Oort Professorship, Leiden University
URSI Fellow
URSI John Howard Dellinger Gold Medal
Education
Postdoc
Lunar and Planetary Lab, University of Arizona, 10/1980 - 12/1983
Ph.D.
Astronomy, 10/1980
Master's
Astronomy, Leiden University, 10/1976
Bachelor's
Astronomy, Leiden University, 07/1974
