Jens Kauffmann joined JPL coming from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA). He continues to lead the “All c2d Spitzer Outflows” survey, a NASA NPP project that characterizes protostellar outflows in 5 major nearby star-forming clouds. At JPL, Jens collaborates with Di Li to study the density and temperature structure of dense cores. As part of the project, he examines how the properties of dense cores relate to the properties of the clouds enveloping the cores. Towards this end, Jens continues to work with Alyssa Goodman (CfA) on their successful NSF proposal “Natal Environments of Dense Cores”.

• Ph.D. in Astronomy/Physics, University of Bonn (2006)
• M.S. in Physics, University of Bonn (2003)

“What cloud mass is necessary to form a star (or cluster) of a particular final (or total) mass?”
• protostars in Orion (and many other regions)
• Ammonia-based gas temperatures vs. dust emission (e.g., in Taurus)
• proto brown dwarfs (Very Low Luminosity Objects; VeLLOs)

• structure and stability of dense cores in dark clouds
• outflows from young stars
• 3D visualization of observational astronomy data (spectral line data cubes)

• NASA Postdoctoral Program (NPP) Fellow at JPL (2009-present)
• Postdoctoral Fellow at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (2006-2009)
• Assistant Researcher at the Max-Planck-Institut fuer Radioastronomie (2002-2006)

• NSF proposal “Natal Environments of Dense Cores” (2009; main author and Science-PI)
• NASA ADP proposal “All c2d Spitzer Outflows” (2007; main author and Science-PI)
• observing time for about 20 projects on diverse facilities (main author)