Protoplanetary disk studies and the process of planet formation. Observability of planet formation in the gas kinematics via GPU-accelerated 3D hydrodynamic simulations. Protoplanetary disk observations with ALMA.

Dr. Sebastián Pérez is Assistant Professor at "Universidad de Santiago de Chile" (USACH) in the Physics Department. As the first astronomy professor of USACH, he is leading an effort to build the first astrophysics research group at USACH. He has 10 years of experience on teaching and mentoring. He has taught 8 full-semester courses at Universidad de Chile (in previous appointment) and U. of Oxford (as a lecturer). He has advised (as co-supervisor) two Master theses in Astronomy. He has advised six undergrad students on research courses involving computing of planet formation topics.
Dr. Pérez leads the Disks Around TTauri stars with ALMA (DARTTS-A) project (which will be completed at the end of 2019) as well as several ALMA rank-A observing campaigns.

Dr. Sebastián Pérez has authored the children’s novel "Cazadores de Eclipses", a book recommended by CONICYT which is being read in hundreds of schools across Chile (there are 5.000 copies distributed in public schools). His experience in outreach and education also includes applying embodied learning (experiential education) to learn astronomy in the classroom. He has given more than 50 outreach talks in the last 10 years. He has been invited as keynote speaker at conferences on art and science multidisciplinarity in Sydney (Australia) and Santiago (Chile).

During 2017, he has lead an embodied learning research initiative which aims at providing experiences where students can acquire an intuition about physics and astronomy using movement of their bodies alone. He works closely with Anna Yermakova on art+science creative initiatives. In 2017, they worked on a concerto for charango and orchestra together, which is based on the fundamental laws of nature. Sebastián served both as astrophysicist and charango soloist for this piece. He is the director of the Skies Concert project (Concierto Cielos), which combines music and astronomy. His adventures in the art+science world started in 2013/2014 as director of the Art, Astronomy, Technology and Society group at the Contemporary Arts Museum of Chile.

Website of the Recreo Espacial embodied learning project: http://recreo.das.uchile.cl
Website of the Concierto Cielos (Chilean Skies Concert) project: http://www.conciertocielos.cl

Sample of press articles about Dr Pérez's outreach and communication results:
http://eldesconcierto.cl/libro-de-astrofisica-para-ninos-plantea-inclusion-de-la-mujer-a-la-ciencia/
https://www.usach.cl/news/la-divulgacion-la-ciencia-no-algo-optativo
https://www.emol.com/noticias/Tecnologia/2015/10/04/752886/Buscan-acercar-la-astronomia-a-los-ninos-a-traves-de-novela-sobre-cazadores-de-eclipses.html