MARTIN GASKELL

PERSONAL HOMEPAGE

Martin_and_family_3M_half_marathon_web.jpg

This is me with the family after the 2009 3M half marathon in Austin, TX.

(I’m wearing a medal because they gave one to everybody at the finish – not because I won anything!)

 

YouTube music videos:      Pi Acres” Suite (complete)     Performance of "Fantasia for Viola and Orchestra"    Choral Preludes for Organ    Song of the Night”(guitar solo performance)

 

I am an astrophysicist at the University of California at Santa Cruz.  My main research interest is in supermassive black holes in the centers of galaxies and especially how they grow and produce their energy.  (I haven’t got my astrophysics web pages updated yet so I won’t put the links in here yet, but in the meantime, if you want some light bedtime reading you can find links to most of my published research papers here.).  Before moving to Santa Cruz I was a professor at the University of Valparaíso in Chile.  My wife, Barbara, and I have three children. We’re a pretty scientific family.  Barbara is a micropaleontologist by training (likes to look at little dead critters from millions of years ago).  Our eldest son is a computer scientist working in Texas, our middle son is a junior honors geosciences student in Texas (also likes to look at little dead critters from millions of years ago and talks about them with his mother), and our daughter who loves chemistry and biology might become a microbiologist or biochemist (she’s interested in how critters that are not dead work).

 

I am also a composer of what is popularly called “classical” music.  The best way to hear my music is to do a YouTube search on my name.   I’m working on a new webpage of my music.  In the meantime, if you want more details, go to my old music web page at http://incolor.inebraska.com/gaskell/compose.html (you can hear some MP3s and download some PDF files of sample pages of sheet music).  We sing and play music together a lot as a family.

 

OTHER INTERESTS:

 

             Running – long distance (between 5 km and half marathons).   Our whole family runs.

             Dancing – I love American square and contra dancing (contras are my favorite) and English country dancing.  I’ve also done some Irish and Scottish country dancing, and Chilean cueca dancing.  Our family helped start the Lincoln Contra Dances.

             Telescope making – see here for some pictures of telescope mirror making parties.

             Relationship between faith and science       – Modern Astronomy, the Bible, and Creation [web page link]

                                                                                    – Modern Astronomy, the Bible, and Creation [printable PDF file]

list of Bible verses about astronomy, the origin of the universe, etc. [PDF file]

 FAMILY PHOTOGRAPHS

 E-mail me: martin.gaskell.astro [at] gmail.com