Dr. Bary is awarded an NSF Astronomy and Astrophysics Postdoctoral Fellowship to carry out a program of research and education at the University of Virginia. Understanding the proto-planetary disks that encircle young Sun-like stars is essential to determining the frequency with which planetary systems form. Dr. Bary will address questions of disk dissipation and star-disk interactions with a multi-faceted observational approach to study the evolution of young stars that harbor circumstellar disks. His research program will work towards answering the question: Does the ubiquity of circumstellar disks lead to the ubiquity of planetary systems?
Dr. Bary will also design and lead professional development seminars/workshops for pre-service and in-service teachers as well as perform a variety of public outreach activities.