Dr. Barbara Castanheira
Assistant Professor of Physics
Education
Ph.D., Physics, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, 2007
M.Sc., Astronomy, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, 2003
B.Sc., Physics, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, 2002
Biography
Dr. Castanheira was born and raised in Brazil. She earned her B.S., M.Sc. and Ph.D. at Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, in Porto Alegre-RS, Brazil. She earned a prized fellowship as an exchange student during her Ph.D. studies at the University of Texas at Austin. From 2007-2010, she was a postdoctoral research at the University of Vienna, Austin. She returned to Texas as a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Astronomy at the University of Texas at Austin in 2011, where she still keeps her researcher status and affiliation. In 2016, she joined Baylor University as full time lecturer. In Summer 2023, she started as a tenure-track assistant professor.
Research
Stellar evolution focused on white dwarf stars:
- Observation of pulsating white dwarf stars
- Modeling of white dwarf internal structure
- Atmospheric parameters of white dwarfs through spectroscopy
- Other variable stars
Courses Taught
PHY 1408 - Physics for Natural and Behavior Sciences I
PHY 1409 - Physics for Natural and Behavior Sciences II
PHY 1455 - Descriptive Astronomy
PHY 2455 - Foundations of Astronomy
PHY 3350 - Topics in Astronomy
PHY 4350 - Introduction to Stellar Structure and Evolution