Rate My Professor Stanford Woosley

Stanford E. Woosley is a Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics in Space Science at the University of California, Santa Cruz, where he joined the faculty in 1975 as Assistant Professor, advanced to Associate Professor in 1978, and became full Professor in 1983. He has chaired the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics on multiple occasions, including 1984-1987, 1989-1991, and from 1998. Woosley received his B.S. in Physics in 1966 and Ph.D. in Astrophysics in 1971 from Rice University. After his doctorate, he held research associate positions from 1971-1973 and served as Research Fellow in Physics at the California Institute of Technology's Kellogg Laboratory from 1973-1975. He has consulted for Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory since 1974 and held the A. v. Humboldt Professorship at the Max Planck Institut für Astrophysik from 1995-1997.

Woosley's research specializes in theoretical high-energy astrophysics, focusing on supernovae, gamma-ray bursts, massive star evolution, and nucleosynthesis. His team develops computational models for stellar nuclear burning, explosive hydrodynamics, radiation transport, and multi-dimensional simulations. Key publications include the collapsar model for gamma-ray bursts (Woosley & MacFadyen, Astrophysical Journal, 524, 262, 1999), presupernova evolution and explosive nucleosynthesis (Woosley & Weaver, Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series, 101, 181, 1995), Type Ia supernova detonations (Woosley & Weaver, Astrophysical Journal, 301, 601, 1986), and gamma-ray bursts from neutron star thermonuclear explosions (Woosley & Taam, Nature, 263, 101, 1976). He was co-investigator on NASA's High Energy Transient Explorer II satellite mission and received funding from the Advanced Supercomputer Initiative for 3D codes. Woosley edited Supernovae: The Tenth Santa Cruz Workshop in Astronomy and Astrophysics (Springer-Verlag, 1991) and has served as editor for New Astronomy since 1996 and International Journal of Modern Physics E since 1994. His honors include election to the National Academy of Sciences in 2006, American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2001, and Fellowship in the American Physical Society in 1987.