My research is in the area of the origin and evolution of the solar system, with a particular emphasis on small bodies including planetesimals, comets, asteroids, planetary rings, planetary satellites, and interplanetary and circumplanetary dust.
Planetary Rings: Theoretical and numerical research on the origin of planetary rings, and the debris rings created by catastrophic disruption of planetary satellites. Collisional evolution of rings and dynamical stability of ring arcs.
Planet Formation: Experimental and numerical studies of the early stages of planetesimal formation. Experimental studies of low-energy collisions have been performed in the laboratory, the space shuttle, and the NASA "vomit comet" airplane.
The Moon: Experimental and numerical studies of the behavior of dust on and near the lunar surface.
Dust: Numerical simulations of the creation of dust by meteoroid impact and evolution of charged and uncharged dust in interplanetary and circumplanetary environments.
Comets: Thermal modeling of comets on diurnal and seasonal time scales, including the effects of non-zero obliquity, complex spin states, and large-scale topography.
Asteroids: Collisional evolution modeling and thermal modeling.
Planetary satellites: Collisional evolution modeling and thermal modeling.
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