Jack Lissauer

Jack Lissauer

Jack Lissauer is a research scientist who has been at NASA's Ames Research Center since 1996. His primary research interests are the formation of planetary systems, planetary dynamics and chaos, planetary ring systems, and circumstellar/protoplanetary disks. In addition to HST imaging projects, his work on the studies of planetary ring systems has included analysis of the interactions between rings and moons and their implications for the ages of ring systems. Jack has worked on a wide variety of theoretical projects related to the formation and evolution of planetary systems. These include modeling the growth of giant planets, the origin of planetary rotation, and the stability of planetary systems. Additionally, he is searching for extrasolar planetary systems, both from the ground and, hopefully, in the future with the proposed Kepler spacecraft. Jack's interest in astronomy began when he and his first grade classmates constructed a model of the Solar System. He was on the Astronomy faculty at the State University of New York at Stony Brook from 1987 to 1996. He is the co-author (with Imke de Pater) of the graduate level textbook "Planetary Sciences" (Cambridge University Press, 2001). When not at work, he enjoys playing softball, hiking, visiting art museums and traveling about our home planet.