Pedro Lacerda

Curriculum Vitae

Born March 27th, 1975, in Lisbon, Portugal

Address

ARC - Physics Building, Queen’s University, Belfast, BT7 1NN, United Kingdom
tel.: +44 28 9097 3708
email:
web: http://star.pst.qub.ac.uk/~pl/

Current Appointment

Newton Fellow at Queen’s University of Belfast

Education

2005 Ph. D. – Leiden University, promotor: Prof. Harm Habing; advisor: Jane Luu;
Thesis: The shapes and spins of Kuiper Belt objects. 

2000 B. Sc. – University of Lisbon, Portugal, degree of Licenciado in Theoretical Physics. 

1993–1996 Instituto Superior Técnico, Lisbon, Portugal, Electrotechnical & Computer Engineering.

Employment

2009– Newton Fellow, Queen’s University of Belfast

2006–2009 Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Hawaii (supervisor: David Jewitt)

2005–2006 Foundation for Science and Technology Postdoctoral Fellow, Coimbra University, Portugal

2000–2005 Promovendus (Graduate Student), Leiden University, The Netherlands

1999 Initiation Reseacher (BIC Grant), Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of Lisbon, Portugal.
Projects: Analysis of photometric data of Centaurs and comets, Assistance in public outreach programs.

Honors

2008 Newton International Fellowship

2005 Foundation for Science and Technology, Portugal, FCT Postdoctoral Fellowship;
research advisors: João Fernandes & David Jewitt.

2003 Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, SAO Predoctoral Fellowship;
research advisor: Scott Kenyon.

1999 Foundation for Science and Technology, Portugal, Initiation Researcher BIC Grant;
advisors: João Lin Yun & Maarten Roos-Serote.

Professional

Reviewer for AJ, ApJ, A&A, and Icarus.  NASA Peer Reviewer.  Full member of the European Astronomical Society, the American Astronomical Society, the Portuguese Physical Society, and the Portuguese Astronomical Society.

Invited Talks

Binaries in the Solar System, Steamboat Springs, Colorado; Aug 2007. Contribution: The abundance of contact binaries in the Kuiper belt.

Teaching Experience

Solar System Lecturer at the BEST Summer School, Jul 2005, Coimbra, Portugal

Teaching Fellow for Astronomy 1, Spring Term 2003, Harvard University, USA.

Teaching assistant, 5th Leiden/Dwingeloo Astrophysics Summer School, 2001, the Netherlands 

Technical

UV, optical, and near and mid-infrared imaging and spectroscopy. Major programming languages, data reduction, plotting, and presentation software (Mathematica, IDL, bash, awk, sed, Fortran, C, C++, Python, LateX, IRAF, SExtractor, POV-Ray, Kaleida Graph, Excel, Keynote, PowerPoint, etc.)

Observing

Co-I Herschel Open Time Key Program “TNOs are Cool: A Survey of the Transneptunian Region”
PI: Thomas Mueller, MPE Garching

Co-I Pan-STARRS PS1 Key Project “Populations of Objects in the Outer Solar System”
PI: Matt Holman, CfA Harvard

Co-I Pan-STARRS PS1 Key Project “Populations of Objects in the Inner Solar System”
PI: Robert Jedicke, IfA Hawaii

Classical mode observing experience: Keck LRIS (Sep 08), Subaru MOIRCS (Apr 08), IRTF MIRSI (Dec 07), UH 88” TEK (Jun+Oct+Dec 07), UH 88” OPTIC (Jul 07), Keck HIRESb (May 07), UKIRT UIST Spectroscopy (Apr 05), WHT Prime Focus (Jun 00, Feb+Nov 01), ESO 2.2-m WFC (Apr+Oct 01), Danish 1.54-m DFOSC (Sep 01), INT WFC (Feb+Sep 01), Dutch 0.91-m La Silla (Jan+Feb 01), OAN 1.52-m Calar Alto (Feb 00), SEST (Sep 99)

Languages

Native: Portuguese; Fluent: English, Italian, Dutch; Good: French, Spanish; Basic: German