Evan Skillman

Director of MIfA, Professor, School of Physics and Astronomy

Contact

612-624-9523

skill001@umn.edu

John T. Tate Hall
Room 285-16
116 Church Street Se
Minneapolis, MN 55455

Affiliations

Minnesota Institute for Astrophysics (MIfA)

Education

Ph.D., University of Washington, 1984

B.A., Cornell University, 1977

Professional Background

Professor, University of Minnesota, 1997-present

Visiting Astronomer, Institute for Astronomy, Cambridge University, 2002-2003

Associate Professor, University of Minnesota, 1993-1997

Assistant Professor, University of Minnesota, 1989-1993

Scientific & Professional Societies

American Astronomical Society

Astronomical Society of the Pacific

International Astronomical Union

Royal Astronomical Society (England)

Biography

Evan Skillman was born in Rochester, NY. He obtained his BA in physics from Cornell University and his Ph.D. in Astronomy from the University of Washington. His Ph.D. thesis, “Physical Conditions in Giant Extragalactic HⅡ Regions,” was supervised by Bruce Balick.

His first postdoctoral research position was at the Netherlands Foundation for Radio Astronomy in Dwingeloo, The Netherlands. There, he worked closely with Thijs van der Hulst. His second postdoctoral research position was as a Welch Foundation Fellow at the University of Texas working with Greg Shields. He joined the faculty of the Astronomy Department at the University of Minnesota in 1989. He has enjoyed sabbatical years at the Max Planck Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics in Garching, Germany, hosted by Simon White, and at the Insitute for Astronomy in Cambridge, UK, hosted by Stephen Smartt.

Evan is a multiwavelength observer of extragalactic objects, with a concentration on nearby galaxies. He has studied the interstellar medium, the stellar populations, the chemical abundances, and the dark matter content of nearby galaxies, with a focus on dwarf galaxies.

Honors and Awards

University of Minnesota Best Director of Graduate Studies, 2005

University of Minnesota Bush Sabbatical Fellowship, 1995 & 2002

University of Minnesota Institute of Technology Outstanding Instructor Award, 1995 & 1996

University of Minnesota Institute of Technology Academic Mentoring Award, 1995

Selected Publications

Skillman, Evan D.; Hidalgo, Sebastian L.; Weisz, Daniel R.; et al., The ACS LCID Project. X. The Star Formation History of IC 1613: Revisiting the Over-cooling Problem, 2014, The Astrophysical Journal, 786, 44

Skillman, Evan D.; Salzer, John J.; Berg, Danielle A.; Pogge, Richard W.; et al., ALFALFA Discovery of the nearby Gas-rich Dwarf Galaxy Leo P. III. An Extremely Metal Deficient Galaxy, 2013, The Astronomical Journal, 146, 3

Aver, Erik; Olive, Keith A.; Porter, R. L.; Skillman, Evan D., The primordial helium abundance from updated emissivities, 2013, Journal of Cosmology and Astrophysics, 11, 017

Kobulnicky, Henry A.; Skillman, Evan D., Elemental Abundance Variations and Chemical Enrichment from Massive Stars in Starbursts. II. NGC 1569, 1996, The Astrophysical Journal, 471, 211 [abstract]

Skillman, Evan D.; Televich, Roberto J.; Kennicutt, Robert C., Jr.; Garnett, Donald R.; Terlevich, Elena, Spatially resolved optical and near-infrared spectroscopy of the low-metallicity galaxy UGC 4483, 1994, Astrophysical Journal, 431, 172 [abstract]

Skillman, Evan D.; Kennicutt, R. C.; Hodge, P. W., Oxygen abundances in nearby dwarf irregular galaxies, 1989, Astrophysical Journal, 347, 875 [abstract]