David Bour

About Me

My name is David Bour, and I am currently a first year PhD student at the Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge. I am supervised by Professor Christopher Tout. I did my undergraduate degrees in physics and astronomy at the University of Maryland, College Park, followed by my Master's degree from Cambridge. My research is in theoretical stellar evolution. My main research projects thus far have been focused on simulating binary stars, first using MESA and then the Cambridge STARS code. More detailed information on my work can be found in this section.

Outside of my research, I am an avid hiker. I also very much enjoy board and card games, particularly hearts and Trivial Pursuit (which also corresponds to a general love of trivia). I also watch and play football, and am a fan of Manchester United. I frequently attend theatrical and musical performances, though I very much lack the skill to be involved in any such performance myself. Finally, I enjoy solving and writing crosswords, mostly in the American format, but I have been trying to be more proficient at cryptics.

Work

My main work is in theoretical stellar evolution, which uses simulations to determine how stars or pairs of stars evolve under different conditions. My research up to this point has been on binary stars, namely in attempting to understand the spin evolution of a star accreting significant mass from a companion. These stars are required to lose large amounts of angular momentum in order to continue accreting at observed rates, and the mechanism through which this occurs is still unknown, though I focus on magnetically driven winds and coupling of a star's magnetic field with that of its accretion disk. Since stellar evolution codes are by and large 1D, it is difficult to include definitionally 3-D stellar properties in them, such as magnetic fields and rotation.

This leads into my current research, which involves attempting to trace the magnetic field evolution of a star through its lifetime, with emphasis on finding its final magnetic field as a white dwarf. This research is done mainly with the Cambridge STARS code and the ROSE code, an add-on to the STARS code that attempts to model magnetic fields and rotation self-consistently. More detailed information on my research experiences can be found in my CV

Teaching

Teaching has long been a passion of mine. During my undergraduate degree, I was twice a teaching assistant (TA) for the physics department's electromagnetism class, and twice for its class on light and colour. I also was the chair of the physics department's student tutoring program, and was responsible for opening it to non-physics majors taking physics classes. In order to help students after me navigate the difficulties of physics and astronomy degrees, I made a formula packet that in theory contains all of the relevant equations for a 4-year degree at most American universities, which can be found here: Undergrad sheet. I then made a similar sheet with some of my classmates after our Master's degree, which contains information relevant to the 4th year of a UK or European undergrad. This sheet can be found here: Grad sheet. Finally, as a PhD student, I have supervised the IoA's Part II Stellar Dynamics and Structure of Galaxies course. If you have any questions regarding the notes or any of the classes I've taught, please do contact me.

Contact

• 
• GitHub
• Orcid

Elements

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    i++;
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