David Spergel's Home Page

Over the last decade, the WMAP Satellite has been the main focus of my research. WMAP was successfully launched on June 30, 2001. The results from WMAP are described in a series of papers. The WMAP 2003 and 2006 parameters papers are currently the 4th and 10th most cited paper in the entire SPIRES catalog and the two most cited papers in physics published this millenium. Our seven year resutls paper is the most cited paper published in 2011 in physics and strophysics.

Spergel and his research group have produced six results that have made the top science stories list in the past nine years:

• WMAP First Year Results showing that a simple cosmological model fit the microwave background and large-scale structure data: Science Magazine's Top Science Story
• Evidence that the universe is very large: Cornish, Spergel, Starkman and Komatsu:

See this interview for a brief description of the WMAP results and see Mike Lemonick's book for the story of the WMAP satellite. My next major CMB project is the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) and supporting observations through the Southern Cosmology Surveys, an international collaboration.

I am part of a group of scientists and engineers at Princeton University who are developing new technologies that should hopefully enable the direct imaging of earth-like planets. I recently led a study of an 4-meter class telescope/occulter system that we called THEIA.

I am part of the new Princeton Center for Theoretical Science. I am also part of the Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (IPMU)

Here are links to a list of my recent and most-cited papers.

Contact Information

• Room 113, Peyton Hall, Princeton, NJ, 08544
• Phone: (609) 258 3589
• Fax: (609) 258 8226
• email: dns at astro DOT princeton DOT edu

Teaching

• FRS 126 Imagining Other Earths (FRS 126) (Spring 2013)
• AST 303 Astronomical Methods (Next taught, Fall 2013. Taught by Strauss, Fall 2012) .
• AST 524/PHY 564 Cosmology (AST 524/PHY 564) (Spring 2011. Next taught in Spring 2014)

Administration

I am serving as Chair of the Department and am the Charles A. Young Professor of Astronomy on the Class of 1897 Foundation. I am an Associate Faculty Member in the Physics Department and in the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department. I am currently co-chair of the NAS Committee on Astronomy and Astrophysics. My CV and recent publications.

Talks

Astrophysics Links

Time Magazine 25 Most Influential Space Scientists

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