email:  dpwhitmi@uark.edu

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Born: Yes! Greenville, SC, 1943 AD, grew up in Columbus, GA                                                       

Education: Ph.D. in Astrophysics from  University of Texas at Austin  

                                                                                                           

Professor of Physics (Ret.): University of Louisiana at Lafayette                                                                                                                       

Current position: Instructor of Mathematics, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville                      

                                                                                                           

Reason for relocation to Fayetteville: Family matters                          

                                                                                                           

Current research interests: Astrobiology, origin of life 

                                                                                                        

Publications with more than one citation: About 70, including 8 in Nature. Most cited paper in scientific journals is "Habitable zones around main sequence stars" with J. Kasting and R. T. Reynolds, Icarus 1993, 101, 108 (2915 citations).

 

Second most cited paper: "Are periodic mass extinctions driven by a distant solar companion?" (Nemesis) with A. A. Jackson (1984, Nature, 308, 713 (280 scientific citations in journals, uncountable number of citations in books and news articles).

 

Most read paper: "Implication of our technological species being first and early" D. P. Whitmire, International Journal of Astrobiology,  Volume 18 / Issue 2 / April 2019 (47,300 full article views and downloads). 

 

Most recent published paper:  Abiogenesis: The Carter Argument Reconsidered  International Journal of Astrobiology / Volume 22 / Issue 2 / April 2023

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Most recent submission 2025:  Old evidence and the abiogenesis timescale. https://arxiv.org/pdf/2503.18217

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All publications from Google Scholar:  https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=Iqy_vnoAAAAJ&hl=en&citsig=ACUpqDdHbJw_5xQ-zrB58MHRfsBi&gmla=AH8HC4wMgihisbR4DX_Dt-PKYpYWpjkcJm89b_r14gfO2JScX8KHhmEovLtR2p5G6m6vVC0xjAIh7BSE9fRRZjVuJkIL9kcblnW1gA

                                                                                                                      

Family:  Married with three exceptional sons: Jason, who is a full Professor of Microbiology and Genetics at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, Ganer, who is 21 and an awarded-winning expert programmer and has his own Axiomless-logic theory of everything , and my stepson Travis who is an army veteran, a graduate of the University of South Florida, and a very profitable Bitcoin enthusiast. I have two grandchildren, Sophia (22), who is a senior at Emory University, and Dylan (18) who is a freshman at UNC-Chapel Hill.  My wife Sabra (age unknown) is an antiques dealer specializing in old dolls (and old professors).