Dr. Adam Kraus

Biography

Adam Kraus is a Professor in the Department of Astronomy at the University of Texas at Austin. He received his bachelor's degrees in Physics, Astronomy, and Mathematics from the University of Kansas in 2003. Kraus completed his Ph.D. in Astrophysics at the California Institute of Technology in 2009. Following his doctoral studies, he held a Hubble Prize Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Hawaii at Manoa from 2009 to 2012, and later a Clay Prize Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics from 2012 to 2013. His research primarily focuses on the formation and evolution of planetary systems, directly imaging gas giant planets forming in orbit around stars. Kraus studies the star formation process, which sets the stage for planet formation, using observations from the Hubble and Spitzer Space Telescopes, as well as large ground-based telescopes such as the Keck observatories. He extensively utilizes the University of Texas's McDonald Observatory, particularly the Hobby-Eberly Telescope, and is involved in efforts related to the Giant Magellan Telescope being constructed in South America.

Research Interests