Sep 81-Jun 85:Brandeis University, Waltham, MA, USA. B.A. in physics.
Magna cum Laude, Highest Honors, Physics Faculty Prize.
Thesis on time series analysis of a variable radio source
(published:
NatureAstronomical J
).
Main Experience
Jun 02-present:CombinatoRx, Inc., Boston MA, USA. Senior Scientist, Computational Biology, for the Discovery department.
Oct 94-Sep 00:Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, MA, USA. Postdoctoral Research Associate, at the Harvard College Observatory [Oct 94-Jun 99]. Research Associate, at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory [Jul 99-Sep 00].
Research:Gene Expression: clustering, array data manipulation, error estimation. Sequence analysis: multi-species comparison, alignment algorithms,
secondary structure detection. Applied mathematics: statistical analyses, theoretical modeling,
Monte Carlo methods, Fourier analyses, signal processing.
Presentation:
Writing scientific articles.
Oral presentations to scientific audiences
(about half were invited).
Preparing proposals for access to resources and funding
(most were successful).
Administrative:
Managing research projects involving 2-5 colleagues,
to culminate in scientific publication.
Refereeing articles for scientific journals and grant proposals.
Organized talk series for local and national speakers
(Harvard Radio & Geoastronomy division).
Gene Expression:
Seeking expression differences between healthy and diabetic muscle tissue.
Trying to discriminate between post-mortem brain samples
from patients diagnosed as schizophrenic, bipolar, clinically
depressed, or healthy.
Exploring whether combining the expression profiles of many
genes into averaged "metagenes" improves the ability to
distinguish disease classes.
Sequence-Related:
Investigating the most efficient ways to combine
whole-genome and Bac-based sequencing, for the mouse sequencing
project. Comparing the results of various alignment methods
being used by the mouse sequencing consortium.
Determining whether many of the mouse-human homologous regions
might be functional RNAs with characteristic folding properties.
Exploring the secondary structure of mRNAs.
Gravitational lens survey:
Using the Hubble Space Telescope
to observe distant galaxies whose images are
gravitationally distorted by foreground galaxies.
This allows us to study dark matter in the lens galaxies,
and also to constrain the shape and size of the Universe
[see Lehár et al. 2000;
and cfa-www.harvard.edu/castles].
Search for lensed radio lobes:
Combining radio and optical surveys to search for
gravitational lenses. Presently ~50 cases of galaxy
lensing are known, but many more are needed to realize their
potential as cosmological probes. Our pilot project
was ~30× more efficient than other searches,
finding 2-3 lenses in only 33
VLA
observations. Our new search
should find dozens, and the method could find hundreds
[see Lehár et al. 2001].
Studies of individual lenses:
Observing lensed galaxies with arrays of telescopes.
For example: surveyed ~1000 targets using the
VLA
and found two lenses
[Lehár et al. 1997;
Lehár et al. 1993];
measured the rate of universal expansion
[Roberts et al. 1991]
by monitoring the first known lens
[Lehár et al. 1992].
Time series analysis with CLEAN:
Developed a one-dimensional deconvolution algorithm to remove
sampling effects in time series analysis
[see Roberts et al. 1986].
The software has been distributed to hundreds of users
and applied to a wide variety of problems.
Papers in Refereed Journals
Publications are listed by submission date, and those which
do not have direct links here can be viewed on the
NASA Astrophysics Data System's abstracts server,
by entering author "Lehar, Joseph", and pressing the "Send Query" button.
Other versions can be found on
the Los Alamos National Laboratory's astrophysics preprints archive.
Some of my favourites are [dated] in bold face.
[99 Nov]
Results from the CASTLES Survey of Gravitational Lenses.
Kochanek CS, Falco EE, Impey CD, Lehár J,
McLeod BA, Rix H-W.
1999, in After the Dark Ages: When Galaxies were Young,
Proc 9th Ann Astrophys Conf (Baltimore MD), 14 pp.
[92 Jul]
Einstein Rings and Einstein Quads.
Burke BF, Conner SR, Hewitt JN, Lehár J
1995, in Sub-arcsecond Radio Astronomy,
Conf in Manchester UK,
eds Davis, Booth, (Cambridge:CUP), 123-127.
[91 Jul]
Einstein Rings and Related Phenomena.
Burke BF, Lehár J, Conner SR.
1992, in Gravitational Lenses,
Conf in Hamburg Germany,
eds Kayser, Schramm, Nieser.
Lecture Notes in Physics (Berlin:Springer), 237-244.
[88 Jun]
Resolution of Galaxy and Third Image of Gravitational Lens 2016+112
Langston G, Carilli C, Conner S, Heflin M, Lehár J,
Lawrence C, Dhawan V, Burke B.
in the Double Quasar 0957+561.
Lehár J, Hewitt JN, Roberts DH.
1989, in Gravitational Lenses, Conf in Cambridge MA,
eds Moran, Hewitt, Lo,
(Heidelberg:Springer), 100-100.
[88 May]
Gravitational Lensing.
Burke BF, Dupree AK, Gondhalekhar PM,
Lehár J, Roberts DH, Wilson R.
1988, in A Decade of UV Astronomy with IUE,
Conf in Greenbelt MD,
ESA SP-281,2,253-256.