Frederic (Fred) A. Rasio

Rasio is the Joseph Cummings Professor of Physics at Northwestern University. He is an elected Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Astronomical Society, American Physical Society, and American Association for the Advancement of Science. Since 2013 he has served as The Astrophysical Journal Letters Editor. He was Founding Co-Director of the Center for Interdisciplinary Exploration and Research in Astrophysics (CIERA) at Northwestern. His research spans a wide range of topics in theoretical astrophysics, including: exoplanets and planet formation; the dynamics of dense stellar systems (globular clusters, galactic nuclei, young star clusters); hydrodynamic stellar interactions (stellar collisions and mergers, binary coalescence, common envelope evolution, tidal disruptions); and relativistic astrophysics (neutron stars and black holes, gravitational waves, radio pulsars). His most recent work has focused on the formation of gravitational wave sources and the formation of massive black holes through stellar dynamical processes, using supercomputer simulations and artificial intelligence methods.