This research area includes Professors David Smith, David Williams, and Tesla Jeltema as well as the Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope group. The Smith group study high-energy radiation and the electromagnetic and plasma processes that generate it in several contexts. These include the astrophysical (accreting neutron stars and black holes), solar (flares) and terrestrial (thunderstorms and Earth’s radiation belts). They seek connections among these fields in terms of observational techniques, existing sources of data, and similar physical processes. They work on instrumentation and data from spacecraft, balloons, and aircraft, as well as simulations that support the interpretation of these data. Professor Jeltema conducts research in the areas of observational cosmology, high energy astrophysics, and particle astrophysics, including constraints on the nature of dark matter and dark energy and studies of the evolution of galaxies. A particular emphasis of her work are studies of the formation and evolution of large-scale structure in the universe using observations covering a broad wavelength range and numerical simulations.

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