Faculty

FAQ

Honors

Requirements

Research

Students

Dear prospective graduate student:

The astrophysics faculty in the Rutgers Department of Physics and Astronomy welcome your interest in our Ph.D. program! We are an energetic, friendly, close-knit group of theorists and multiwavelength observers whose interests include cosmology, dark matter, dark energy, galaxy formation and evolution, galaxy dynamics, supernovae, gravitational lensing, turbulence, and time-domain astronomy. Rutgers has a ~10% share of observing time on the Southern African Large Telescope (SALT), is a member of the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) Corporation, and has invested significant resources in a new high-performance computing initiative.

We invite you to learn about the (inter)national and university honors our faculty have won for research and teaching, the requirements of our graduate program (a combination of coursework and a research-focused candidacy exam), our recent research results as reflected in our refereed publications, and a view from our current and former students. Our main web page is here, and a statement of our commitment to building a safe and inclusive community is here; you are welcome to email our graduate recruiting committee representatives (at b.burkhart[at]rutgers.edu and km1243[at]physics.rutgers.edu) if you have any questions.

If you like what you see, we encourage you to submit your application here (following these guidelines) before the January 1, 2023 deadline!

Sincerely yours,

Andrew Baker, Professor
radio astronomy; molecular and atomic gas in galaxies; galaxy evolution
Alyson Brooks, Associate Professor
galaxy formation and evolution; galactic structure; cosmological N-body+SPH simulations of galaxies
Matt Buckley, Associate Professor
dark matter; beyond-standard-model physics; Large Hadron Collider phenomenology
Blakesley Burkhart, Assistant Professor
magnetohydrodynamic turbulence; applications to the interstellar medium, galaxies, and cosmology
Eric Gawiser, Distinguished Professor
galaxy formation; dark matter; dark energy; multiwavelength galaxy surveys
Jack Hughes, Distinguished Professor
X-ray astrophysics; galaxy clusters; supernova remnants
Saurabh Jha, Distinguished Professor
dark energy; supernovae; time-domain astronomy
Chuck Keeton, Professor
dark matter; gravitational lensing
Kristen McQuinn, Assistant Professor (on indefinite leave from January 2024; not seeking new students)
observational extragalactic astronomy; formation and evolution of low-mass galaxies in the local Universe

Last edited October 23, 2023.