I am a theoretical cosmologist.  My interests lie within cosmology, defined rather broadly. I strive to maintain a close connection with observation in large part because the amount and discriminating power of observational data is expanding rapidly and will continue to expand into the next decade. My aim is to make predictions that are unique and testable in the near term and to facilitate comparisons with data that are robust and maximize the discriminating power of the data. In many cases, this leads to studies of the particular capabilities of forthcoming instruments to study any variety of phenomena, from dark energy evolution to galaxy formation processes. My interests range throughout a broad cross section of cosmology to encompass galaxy formation, the phenomenology and identification of the dark matter and dark energy, and astrophysical limits on fundamental physics.

My group at the University of Pittsburgh is active and growing. I currently have five graduate students: Elizabeth Blair, Travis Hurst, Kara Ponder, Antonio Villarreal, and Mei-Yu Wang. Andre Hearing Graduated in 2012 and has moved on to a postdoctoral fellowship at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. My research group is funded by the US National Science Foundation and the US Department of Energy.  I am currently looking for new graduate and undergraduate students that may be interested in pursuing theoretical cosmology research within my group.  If you are interested, please contact me.

I joined the faculty at the University of Pittsburgh in the Fall of 2007. Prior to entering into theoretical cosmology, I received a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art in New York City. I received my Ph.D. from The Ohio State University in 2003 under the direction of Professor Terry Walker. I was then an Institute Fellow at the Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics and the Enrico Fermi Institute at the University of Chicago from Fall 2003 until Fall 2006. I was a National Science Foundation Astronomy and Astrophysics Postdoctoral Fellow at the Kavli Institute and the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of Chicago from Fall 2006 until moving to the University of Pittsburgh.