Team Photo
Lisa Prato (middle) and DEFT:
Disks & Exoplanets Flagstaff Team
Lowell Observatory
1400 West Mars Hill Road
Flagstaff, AZ 86001
lprato[at]lowell[dot]edu

Young Visual Binary Star Database
The NIRSPEC H-Band Radial Velocity Templates


Research Interests

My research is primarily on young binary stars, from studies of their origin, evolution, and capacity for planet formation, to their exploitation as a means of measuring mass ratios and masses. Because most young stars are in gravitationally bound double systems, these are important research areas. The smallest separation pairs, spectroscopic binaries, with periods of a few days to years, are so interesting that they've spawned additional projects for me on pre-main sequence and main sequence M star spectroscopic binaries, young and field brown dwarf spectroscopic binaries, and very old population II spectroscopic binaries. Some of this work is described in the references listed below. A lot of it is in progress. Much of it is being carried out by the capable graduate and undergraduate students who I collaborate with.

Students

Paula Johns (BS, expected 2013)
Nicole Karnath (MS, expected 2013)
Dary Ruiz (MS, 2012)
Christopher Crockett (PhD, 2011)
Kendra Kellogg (BS, 2011)
Viviana Rosero (MS, 2010)
Gregory Mace (BS, 2008)
Emily Rice (MS, 2005)

Education/Experience

B.S., University of Massachusettes at Amherst
Instructor, Universidad Industrial de Santander, Bucaramanga, Colombia, 1988—1991
Ph.D., State University of New York at Stony Brook, 1998
Postdoctoral Researcher, University of California at Los Angeles, 1998—2004
Assistant Astronomer, Lowell Observatory, 2004—2010
Astronomer, Lowell Observatory, 2010—present


CV in pdf format

ADS Publications


Lowell Observatory Home Page


Last modified: 9/7/2012

lprato[at]lowell[dot]edu