Observing the Stars

Niel Brandt, the Verne M. Willaman Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics at Penn State

In 1996 the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CFA) awarded a postdoctoral fellowship to W. Niel Brandt, who at the time had just completed his PhD program at the University of Cambridge, UK.

Following a lifelong career of cosmic surveys, X-ray and galaxies research, this SI fellow alum was recently recognized with the most prestigious annual award given by the High Energy Astrophysics Division of the American Astronomical Society - the Bruno Rossi Prize.

Dr. Brandt, currently the Verne M. Willaman Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics at Penn State, has been focusing on the studies of X-ray signals from extreme sources located at considerable distances from Earth. These cosmological X-ray surveys nicknamed Chandra Deep Fields explore the nature and life cycles of supermassive black holes and their influence on the Universal environment.

Dr. Brandt’s work constitutes an immense contribution to the modern high-energy astrophysics. Since the launch of his career at CFA he authored 410 publications on a variety of topics, which have resulted in over 32,000 citations.

X-ray: NASA/CXC/University of Missouri-Kansas City/M.Brodwin et al; Optical: NASA/STScI; Infrared: JPL/CalTech

You can learn more about Dr. Brandt’s research and his recent award here and here.