Astrophysics at UCI

Faculty, postdoctoral scholars, and students in the Astrophysics group at UC Irvine are engaged in research in diverse areas of astronomy and astrophysics. Current research areas include cosmology and particle astrophysics, observational and theoretical studies of galaxy evolution, dark matter, black holes, quasars, and galaxy clusters, climate and habitability of exoplanets, and the design of optical telescopes and instrumentation.

Affiliated Research Centers and Facilities

The UC Irvine Center for Cosmology unites astrophysicists and particle physicists carrying out theoretical, observational, and experimental research on the composition, origin, and fate of the Universe, the fundamental physics governing it, and the evolution of galaxies and structure in the Universe. 

UC Irvine is a member of the University of California Observatories (UCO) multi-campus research unit. UCO manages Lick Observatory at Mt. Hamilton (near San Jose, California) and coordinates UC's partnerships in the W. M. Keck Observatory and the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) project. UCI astronomers carry out observational projects at Keck and Lick, and play active roles in technical and science planning for TMT.

Additionally, astronomers at UCI carry out observational research using NASA facilities including the Hubble Space Telescope, the Chandra X-ray Observatory, and (soon) the James Webb Space Telescope, and international ground-based facilities including the Gemini Observatory and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array. UCI astronomers also collaborate in the eBOSS, DESI, and LSST surveys of the large-scale structure of the Universe, designed to probe the nature of cosmic acceleration.

Seminars and events

The Astrophysics group hosts a weekly seminar series during the academic year. Astrophysics seminars are held tuesdays at 4:00 pm in NS2 1201. Our seminar series is currently on hiatus due to COVID but we hope to resume seminars in winter or spring 2022.

On Tuesday and Thursday at 2pm in FRH 2153 we hold an informal discussion of recent papers on the arXiv. We use the Vox Charta portal to organize the discussions.

Astrophysics Personnel