{"id":41306,"date":"2025-12-15T19:29:52","date_gmt":"2025-12-16T00:29:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/hic\/?post_type=profile&#038;p=41306"},"modified":"2026-06-18T15:11:40","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T19:11:40","slug":"jj-hermes","status":"publish","type":"profile","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/hic\/profile\/jj-hermes\/","title":{"rendered":"JJ Hermes, PhD"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><span data-olk-copy-source=\"MessageBody\">JJ Hermes<\/span><\/strong><span>\u00a0<\/span><span>is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Astronomy in the College of Arts &amp; Sciences, where his research focuses on high-precision observations of the endpoints of stellar and planetary evolution, including compact binary systems.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Hermes\u2019 primary research centers on white dwarf stars\u2014the final evolutionary state of more than 97 percent of all stars in the Milky Way. He studies pulsating and binary white dwarfs to measure their fundamental properties and uses these stars as exceptionally stable clocks to test general relativity, detect giant planets, and observe stellar evolution on human timescales.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Before moving to Boston in 2019, Hermes was a\u00a0<\/span><span><a data-auth=\"NotApplicable\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.stsci.edu\/stsci-research\/fellowships\/nasa-hubble-fellowship-program\" data-linkindex=\"0\" title=\"http:\/\/www.stsci.edu\/stsci-research\/fellowships\/nasa-hubble-fellowship-program\">Hubble Fellow<\/a><\/span><span>\u00a0<\/span><span>at\u00a0<\/span><span><a data-auth=\"NotApplicable\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/physics.unc.edu\/\" data-linkindex=\"1\" title=\"https:\/\/physics.unc.edu\/\">UNC Chapel Hill<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<\/span><span>an ERC postdoctoral fellow at the\u00a0<\/span><span><a data-auth=\"NotApplicable\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/warwick.ac.uk\/fac\/sci\/physics\/research\/astro\/\" data-linkindex=\"2\" title=\"https:\/\/warwick.ac.uk\/fac\/sci\/physics\/research\/astro\/\">University of Warwick<\/a><\/span><span>\u00a0<\/span><span>in central England<\/span><span>. He completed a PhD at the University of Texas at Austin. Earlier in his career, Hermes worked as a journalist, serving as editor-in-chief\u00a0<\/span><span><a data-auth=\"NotApplicable\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.dailytexanonline.com\/\" data-linkindex=\"3\" title=\"http:\/\/www.dailytexanonline.com\">The Daily Texan<\/a><\/span><span>\u00a0<\/span><span>in 2007, and as a reporter for\u00a0<\/span><span><a data-auth=\"NotApplicable\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/chronicle.com\/\" data-linkindex=\"4\" title=\"http:\/\/chronicle.com\">The Chronicle of Higher Education<\/a><\/span><span>\u00a0<\/span><span>in Washington, D.C.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25220,"template":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/hic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/profile\/41306"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/hic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/profile"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/hic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/profile"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/hic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25220"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/hic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/profile\/41306\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42710,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/hic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/profile\/41306\/revisions\/42710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/hic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}