 | Charles Bailyn |
Charles D. Bailyn, who has been designated as the Thomas E. Donnelley Professor of Astronomy, is an expert in theoretical and observational galactic astronomy, binary star systems and black holes.
Bailyn discovered small black holes in star systems in the constellations Musca and Scorpius. In later research, he found a surprising uniformity in the masses of black holes formed when dying stars collapse and explode. His recent research efforts have focused on observations of binary star systems containing black holes and on stellar collisions in dense star clusters.
He has done much of his research at and held leadership positions with three astronomical consortia: the WIYN Consortium, in which a 3.4-meter telescope at Kitt Peak Observatory in Arizona is shared by the University of Wisconsin, Indiana University, Yale and the National Optical Astronomy Observatories; YALO, in which a one-meter telescope at the Cerro Tololo Interamerican Observatory in Chile is shared by Yale, the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Lisbon University in Portugal and Ohio State University; and SMARTS (Small and Moderate Aperture Research Telescope System), which was established by Yale and 10 other U.S. institutions to provide access to research telescopes in the southern hemisphere.
In addition to teaching introductory to advanced astronomy courses at Yale, Bailyn helped develop "Current Issues in Science," a course for freshman non-scientists, and an online course on black holes for the Allearn alliance. He has also lectured on "How To See a Black Hole" to school groups, Yale alumni and amateur astronomical societies. He is the author of over 90 scientific papers, and his work was featured in the PBS mini-series "Mysteries of Deep Space."
Bailyn earned a B.S. in astronomy and physics from Yale in 1981 and a Ph.D. in astronomy from Harvard in 1987. He was a junior fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows 1987-1990, before coming to Yale as an assistant professor. He was appointed to a full professorship in 1998 and was named chair of the Department of Astronomy in 1999. He also chaired the Yale College Teaching and Learning Committee and the Committee on Yale College Education's Subcommittee on Science for Non-Scientists, and served as director of undergraduate studies in astronomy.
His research has been supported by grants from NASA and the National Science Foundation (NSF). Bailyn's honors include the NSF's National Young Investigator Award, Harvard's Bart J. Bok Award and the Trumpler Award for the best Ph.D. thesis in astronomy in North America from the Astronomical Society of the Pacific.
T H I S
Charles Bailyn:
Donnelley Professor of Astronomy
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