Charles Forbes Gammie

Charles Forbes Gammie
Charles Forbes Gammie he/him/his

Primary Research Area

  • Astrophysics / Relativity / Cosmology
Ikenberry Chair
(217) 333-8646
235 Loomis Laboratory

For More Information

Education

  • Ph.D., Astrophysics, Princeton University, 1992

Biography

Professor Charles Gammie received his bachelor's degree in mathematics in 1987 from Yale University and his Ph.D. in astrophysical sciences from Princeton in 1992. He was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Virginia from 1992-1994, and at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts from 1994-1998. He joined the faculties of physics and astronomy at Illinois in January 1999.

Professor Gammie's research involves black holes, star and planet formation, and accretion physics. He is a leader in the computer simulation of astrophysical plasmas, particularly studies of hot plasmas accreting onto black holes. He was named a University Scholar and a Richard and Margaret Romano Professorial Scholar in 2007.

Selected Articles in Journals

  • Gammie, C.F., Noble, S., & Leung, P.K., “Numerical Models of Black Hole Accretion Flows,” Comp. Phys. Comm., 177: 250–253, Jul. 2007.
  • Johnson, B., & Gammie, C.F., “Linear Theory of Thin, Radially Stratified Disks,” Astrophys. J., 626: 978–990, June 2005.
  • McKinney, J.C., & Gammie, C.F., “A Measurement of the Hydromagnetic Luminosity of a Kerr Black Hole,” Astrophys. J., 611: 977–995, August 2004.
  • Gammie, C.F., “The Magnetorotational Instability in the Kerr Metric,” Astrophys. J., 614: 309–313, October 2004.
  • Watson, W.D., Wiebe, D.S., McKinney, J.C., & Gammie, C.F., “Anisotropy of Magnetohydrodynamic Turbulence and the Polarized Spectra of OH Masers,” Astrophys. J., 604: 707–716, April 2004.
  • Gammie, C.F., Shapiro, S.L., & McKinney, J.C., “Black Hole Spin Evolution,” Astrophys. J., 602: 312–319, February 2004.

Research Honors

  • University Scholar, University of Illinois (Sept. 2007 - Aug. 2010)
  • Center for Advanced Study Beckman Fellowship (2001, 2002, 2003)
  • Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists And Engineers (PECASE) (July 2002)
  • National Science Foundation CAREER Award for Outstanding Research/Teaching (2001-2006)
  • National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), Faculty Fellow, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (2001-2002)

Recent Courses Taught

  • ASTR 405 - Planetary Systems
  • ASTR 496 - Seminar in Astronomy
  • ASTR 501 - Radiative Processes
  • ASTR 502 - Astrophysical Dynamics
  • PHYS 101 - College Physics: Mech & Heat
  • PHYS 598 CPA - Special Topics in Physics

Semesters Ranked Excellent Teacher by Students

SemesterCourseOutstanding
Spring 2015PHYS 496