October 15, 2001
Welcome to my little asteroid island in the vast ocean of cyberspace. My name is Andrew D. Vanture and I teach most of the astronomy courses at EvCC. In case you are wondering about the name, I picked it up in graduate school when I had an affinity for wearing an Indiana Jones style hat. In addition if one combines the initials of my first and middle name with my last name you get A.D. Vanture. I think the rest of the story is obvious, though it sometimes makes me wonder what exactly my parents were thinking when they named me.
Now a little about myself. I have a Bachelor's degree in physics from Pomona College, spent a year as a physics graduate student at Oregon State University then transferred to the University of Washington where I earned a Masters degree and a Ph.D. in Astronomy. I have been teaching at EvCC since 1995. Before coming to EvCC, I taught at Union College in Schenectady, NY and at the University of Washington. If you would like to find out more about my work experience and education please have a look at my resume.
My research interests center on stellar evolution and nucleosynthesis. Specifically I am interested in how elements more massive than iron are synthesized in stars during the terminal stages of their evolution. My dissertation work involved an analysis of the chemical abundances of Red Giant CH stars. I have also done some work on chemically peculiar stars in globular clusters, R Coronea Borealis stars, lithium abundances in red giants and technetium abundances in M stars. If you would like to find out more about my research you can find a listing of my published work in my publications list.
Currently, I teach a variety of physics and astronomy courses at EvCC. Please feel free to avail yourself of the links to other interesting astronomy sites found on my links page.
If I can answer any questions for you concerning astronomy and physics here at EvCC or my research please feel free to email me.
