Michael Vogeley
Michael S. Vogeley
Professor of Physics
Drexel University

Ph.D. (Astronomy), Harvard University, 1993
A.M. (Astronomy), Harvard University, 1988
A.B. (Astrophysical Sciences), Princeton University, 1987

Phone: (215) 895-2710
Fax: (215) 895-5934
Email: vogeley@drexel.edu
Office: Disque 811
Postal address: Department of Physics, Drexel University,
3141 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104

Research Interests

Observational and theoretical cosmology, cosmic voids, galaxy formation and evolution, statistical analysis of large data sets, active galactic nuclei, time-series analysis, basketball shot analysis.

More information is on the Drexel Astrophysics Group research home page.

Research Group

My research group at Drexel currently includes physics graduate students Sam Kumagai, Keri Heuer, and Henry Adair, and physics undergraduate students Gavin Ashman and Christina Ludwig. Drexel faculty collaborators include Professors Dave Goldberg, Steve McMillan, and Gordon Richards in Physics, and Prof. Chaomei Chen in the College of Computing and Informatics. I also collaborate with many researchers at institutions across the globe, particularly with other members of the SDSS and LSST collaborations.

Research Group Alumni

Rebecca Phillipson (Ph.D. 2020) was a NSF Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Astronomy at the University of Washington and at Villanova University and will join the Villanova faculty in Fall 2024. Jackeline Moreno (Ph.D. 2019) is a research scientist at Lockheed Martin. Kelly Douglass (Ph.D. 2017) is an Assistant Professor of Physics and Astronomy and Director of the C.E.K. Mees Observatory at the University of Rochester. Crystal Moorman (Ph.D. 2015) is an Assistant Professor of Physics, Director of the Belk Astronomical Observatory, and Chair of the Physics Department at the University of Lynchburg. Vishal Kasliwal (Ph.D. 2015) was a postdoctoral fellow at Princeton and the University of Pennsylvania. He is now a Senior Member of Technical Staff at AMD. Danny Pan (Ph.D. 2011) was a postdoctoral fellow at Shanghai National Observatory and is now Head of Data Science at SetSail. John Parejko (Ph.D. 2010) was a postdoctoral fellow at Yale and is now Astronomer at the University of Washington. Randall Rojas (Ph.D. 2004) worked at Raytheon Corporation as a Senior Multi-Disciplined Engineer (Astrophysicist) where he applied his knowledge of astrophysics and statistics to a wide variety of problems. He also completed a Ph.D. in statistics at UCLA, and is now an adjunct associate professor of Economics at UCLA.

Former Postdoctoral Fellow and Research Assistant Professor Fiona Hoyle is currently a Research Professor at Observatorio Astronomico Quito, where she moved after becoming a tenured faculty member at Widener University. Former Postdoctoral Fellow and Research Assistant Professor Anca Constantin is a tenured Professor in the Department of Physics at James Madison University, where she was hired in 2009 following a postdoctoral position at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

Professional Affiliations

American Astronomical Society, International Astronomical Union, Society of Catholic Scientists

Sponsored Research

My research at Drexel has been supported by $4.6M in grants from NASA, NSF, the AAS, and the John Templeton Foundation.

Publications

The outdated list below is illustrative of my research interests, selected from over 100 refereed articles. For up to date publications and links to the articles, see the ADS abstract service and the astro-ph preprint archive.

Here's a really good review of cosmology, together with a long list of useful references: The Beginning and Evolution of the Universe, an invited review for PASP by Bharat Ratra and myself (Ratra, B. & Vogeley, M.S. 2008, PASP, 120, 235).

Here are some examples of my publications (see the links above for a current and complete list):

voids and void galaxies

active galactic nuclei

topology and mapping of large-scale structure

power spectrum and cosmological parameter estimation

Courses (with links to course web pages)

Honors 301-20h Cosmology: Past, Present, and Future of the Universe

Physics 115 Contemporary Physics III

Physics 131 Survey of the Universe

Physics 233 Introduction to Relativity

Physics 326 Quantum Mechanics I

Physics 327 Quantum Mechanics II

Physics 428 Quantum Mechanics III

Physics 432/532 Cosmology (Undergraduate/Graduate)

Links

Drexel Astrophysics Group

Department of Physics home page

Drexel University home page

Sloan Digital Sky Survey public page

Large Synoptic Survey Telescope public page page

Space Telescope Science Insitute

Last update: May 6, 2024