Jacco van Loon - Keele University
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Physics & Astrophysics

Dr Jacco Th. van Loon

Title: Lecturer
Phone: +44 (0) 1782 7 33331
Email:
Location: Lennard-Jones 2.07
Role: Year 1 Tutor
Physics/Astrophysics Tutor for Study Abroad,
ERASMUS and International Exchange
Contacting me:
VanLoon_Jacko

I was born in a small village in The Netherlands, near Arnhem. After my primary and secondary education in Alkmaar i went on to study Astrophysics at the University of Amsterdam. This is also where i obtained my Ph.D., in 1999, after having spent the first two years at the European Southern Observatory Headquarters near Munich in Germany. Then i got married, spent two years in Cambridge as a postdoctoral researcher, and in 2001 took up a lectureship at Keele University where i got promoted to Reader in 2008.

Jacco My research concentrates on "Stellar Ecology": the interplay between stars and their environment. Stars form from dense clouds of gas and dust, most of which was previously burnt inside stars and ejected by them as they died. This mass-loss process can happen in different ways, via winds or explosions. Much of my research is aimed at understanding how these mechanisms work, and how they would operate under conditions that were prevalent in the early Universe but which we can no longer observe locally. In order to better understand the impact of the ejecta on the future of their host galaxies, i investigate the small-scale structure of the diffuse interstellar medium.

My work is observationally driven, using the largest facilities in space (e.g., the NASA Spitzer Space Telescope) and on the ground (ESO Very Large Telescope, Arecibo radio telescope, et cetera), and my Ph.D. students have gone on several observing trips to Chile and Australia.

In 2007 i was awarded a Leverhulme Research Fellowship, to work on the neighbouring spiral galaxy Messier 33 together with an Iranian Ph.D. student. Besides my research i also edit two electronic newsletters (on AGB Stars and on the Magellanic Clouds), chair the ESO Users Committee and organise an International Astronomical Union Symposium at Keele in 2008.

Picture shows the globular cluster omega Centauri

For more details see http://www.astro.keele.ac.uk/~jacco

  • T2 Astrophysics Laboratory (module leader)
  • PHY-20001 Galaxies (module leader)
  • PHY-20008 Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics (module leader)
  • PHY-30025 Life in the Universe (module leader)