Curator and Professor
Physical Sciences, Astrophysics

Download Curriculum Vitae

mshara@amnh.org
212-769-5488

Education

• Tel Aviv University, Ph.D., 1977
• University of Toronto, M.Sc., 1973
• University of Toronto, B.Sc., 1971

Research Interests

Dr. Shara and his colleagues are conducting an exhaustive survey to inventory all 100,000 stars nearest to Earth. More than one billion stars are being examined in their search for high proper motion stars. The survey has already determined that many low luminosity stars remain undiscovered just a few tens of light years away, and that a modest portion of the local "dark" matter is concentrated in stars 100 to 100,000 times fainter than the Sun. Dr. Shara uses the Hubble Space Telescope to survey the densest cores of globular clusters to retrieve and characterize the predicted stellar collision products. These include some of the most exotic stars known to astrophysicists: "blue stragglers." By accurately "weighing" these stars, Shara and his collaborators have demonstrated that some are at least twice as massive as all other stars in a globular cluster. This strongly supports the hitherto theoretical collisional origin for blue stragglers. Shara and colleagues are carrying out an infrared imaging survey of much of the Milky Way, to locate the expected 2,000 pre-supernova Wolf Rayet stars scattered across our Galaxy. The infrared imagery sees through the intervening dust in our Galaxy, permitting a mapping and census of dying stars never possible before. The same survey will also detect, for the first time, most of the massive black holes that are cannibalizing their binary stellar companions throughout the Milky Way.

Teaching Experience 
FACULTY APPOINTMENTS

• Adjunct Professor, Department of Astronomy, Columbia University, 1999-present
• Visiting Professor, Department of Astronomy, Columbia University, 1993
• Visiting Assistant Professor, Department of Physics, Arizona State University, 1980-1982

COURSES TAUGHT

• Stellar Structure and Evolution, Graduate Course, Columbia University, January-May 2005

GRADUATE ADVISEES

• James D. Neill, Columbia University
• Jackie Faherty, SUNY-Stony Brook

Exhibition and Outreach

• Lead Curator on Hayden Planetarium spaceshow: Life in the Universe: Are We Alone?
• Lead Curator on Hayden Planetarium spaceshow: Cosmic Collisions
• Lead Curator on AMNHSpecial Exhibition: Einstein: Changing the World, November 2002- August 2003

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