Jason Aufdenberg

Title
Associate Professor and Program Coordinator for B.S. in Astronomy and Astrophysics
Email
Department
Physical Sciences Department
College
College of Arts & Sciences

Office Hours

MWF 1:00 PM - 3:00 PM, TTh 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM, or by appointment.
Jason Aufdenberg

Dr. Jason Aufdenberg is an associate professor of physics and astronomy in the Physical Sciences Department and program coordinator of the B.S. Astronomy & Astrophysics Program.

Dr. Aufdenberg holds a Ph.D. in Physics from Arizona State University and an M.S. Physics from the University of Toledo. Prior to his academic career, he was awarded the Michelson Postdoctoral Fellowship at the National Optical Astronomy Observatories and the CfA Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

Dr. Aufdenberg specializes in stellar astrophysics, in particular stellar spectroscopy, stellar interferometry and stellar atmospheres. For the last 30 years he has been developing and using the PHOENIX general stellar atmosphere code to produce models for many of the brightest stars in the night sky: Sirius, Deneb, Mirzam, Adhara, Vega, Spica and Merak, to name a few. Dr. Aufdenberg successfully modeled the extreme ultraviolet spectral energy distribution of Adhara (epsilon Canis Majoris), the brightest star in the night sky at a
wavelength of 50 nanometers. He also participated in one of the first interferometric limb-darkening measurements and modeling of Vega (alpha Lyrae), confirming it to be a pole-on rapidly rotating star. Dr. Aufdenberg recently joined the VERITAS collaboration for stellar intensity interferometry and has co-authored a paper constraining the temperature and age of Merak (beta Ursa Majoris), a star in the Ursa Major moving group.

With over 40 peer-reviewed publications in astrophysics journals, Dr. Aufdenberg continues to pursue new tests for stellar atmosphere models and new constraints on fundamental stellar parameters. He is a member of the American Astronomical Society, the International Astronomical Union and Sigma Xi (Scientific Research Honor Society).

Beyond his scholarly achievements, Dr. Aufdenberg is passionate about public outreach in astronomy and has participated in over 100 astronomy open house events at Embry-Riddle and has been presented many astronomy programs in public schools and public libraries. He is a non-driver who is passionate about bicycles for transportation. He has served on the Volusia-Flager Bicycle Pedestrian Advisory Committee, representing Volusia at Large, since 2012, for two years as the BPAC chair.

  • Ph.D. - Doctor of Philosophy in Physics, Arizona State University
  • AA 345: Astrophysics Seminar
  • AA 101: Current Topics in Astrophysics

PS 150 Physics for Engineers I with Calculus 

PS 301 Astronomy

PS 318 Introductory Astronomy & Astrophysics Laboratory 

PS 401 Astrophysics I

PS 405 Atomic and Nuclear Physics
PS 408 Astrophysics II

EP 345 Space Sciences Seminar 

EP 393 Spaceflight Dynamics

EP 420 Planetary Science 
EP 425 Observational Astronomy 

EP 492 Senior Thesis

HON 350 History and Practice of Ancient Astronomy

HON 350 The Moon in Science, History and Culture.