Rate My Professor Nevin Weinberg

Nevin Weinberg is Professor of Physics at the University of Texas at Arlington. He received his Ph.D. in Astrophysics from the California Institute of Technology in 2005 under advisor Marc Kamionkowski, and his A.B. in Physics with honors and S.B. in Mathematics from the University of Chicago in 2000. Prior to joining UTA as Associate Professor in 2020 and promoting to full Professor in 2024, Weinberg served as Associate Professor from 2016 to 2019 and Assistant Professor from 2011 to 2016 in the Department of Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Earlier positions include TAC Postdoctoral Fellow at University of California, Berkeley from 2006 to 2011, KITP Postdoctoral Fellow at Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics from 2005 to 2006, and NSF Graduate Research Fellow at Caltech from 2000 to 2003.

Weinberg's research interests encompass stellar fluid dynamics, tidal physics, compact object binaries, short-period exoplanets, X-ray bursts, and asteroseismology. As principal investigator, he has received substantial funding from NSF and NASA, including NSF Astronomy & Astrophysics grant 2107218 for Spectral and Radiation Hydrodynamic Models of Photospheric Radius Expansion X-ray Bursts (2021–2025, $237,464), NSF grant 2054353 for Dynamical Tides in Close Stellar Binaries and Exoplanetary Systems (2020–2025, $481,538), NASA Astrophysics Theory Program grant 80NSSC21K0493 for Influence of nonlinear wave dynamics on the asteroseismic properties of post-main-sequence stars (2021–2026, $594,089), and NASA grant NNX14AB40G for Tidal Evolution of Coalescing Compact Binaries, Short Period Exoplanets, and Rotating Stars (2014–2018, $615,233). His honors include the Sherman Fairchild Postdoctoral Scholarship in Physics (2019–2022) and NSF Graduate Research Fellowship (2000–2003). Notable publications include “Dynamical tide modified Roche limit in eccentric, asynchronous binaries” (Yu et al., 2025), “Tidally Torn: Why the Most Common Stars May Lack Large, Habitable-Zone Moons” (Patel et al., 2025), “Statistics and Habitability of F-type Star–Planet Systems” (Patel et al., 2024, ApJS), “Orbital Decay of Hot Jupiters due to Weakly Nonlinear Tidal Dissipation” (Weinberg et al., 2024, ApJ), and “Resonant Mode Coupling in δ Scuti Stars” (Mourabit & Weinberg, 2023, ApJ). Weinberg's contributions elucidate nonlinear tidal effects on hot Jupiter orbital evolution, gravitational waveforms from neutron star inspirals, resonant mode coupling in pulsating stars, and habitability in F-type star systems.