Doug Roberts, Ph.D.

Director of the Space Visualization Laboratory, Adler Planetarium & Astronomy Museum

I am involved in several investigations to measure the motion of warm gas around the supermassive black hole that is believed to exist in the center of our Galaxy. The orbits of this gas can be used to determine the mass of the black hole and identify how the gravity of the black hole along with other processes affect the formation of new stars in the Galactic Center. Recently, I have participated in world-wide campaigns to observe the supermassive black hole at the center of the Galaxy for hourly variability, which probes physics very near the black hole. Using his expertise of the Center of the Galaxy, I have worked as a science adviser for the 2002 Discovery Channel show entitled Unfolding Universe. Additionally, I use radio telescopes such as the Very Large Array (VLA) and Green Bank Telescope (GBT) to investigate the interaction of the shells of exploded stars (supernova remnants) with molecular clouds, which are the stellar nurseries where new stars are formed.