Timothy Heckman

Timothy Heckman’s research has focused on observations of the evolution of galaxies and supermassive black holes. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2016. NAS noted that “Timothy Heckman’s work is observational and multi-waveband in nature, with an emphasis on spectroscopy in the visible and ultraviolet. He is interested in the understanding the physical processes that over the last 13 billion years have determined the properties of galaxies and their supermassive black holes. His early work showed that energetic activity associated with supermassive black holes is present at low levels in the nuclei of normal galaxies. He has pioneered the multi-waveband observations of galactic winds driven by the energy and momentum supplied by massive stars, and has developed a variety of diagnostic tools to interpret these outflows and quantify their effects. He has used the new generation of very large sky surveys to characterize the content, physical characteristics, and chemical and dynamical properties of the population of galaxies in the contemporary universe and relate these to the growth rates of supermassive black holes.” Heckman graduated from Harvard with a degree in physics and a concentration in astronomy. He received his doctorate from the University of Washington, followed by post-doctoral fellowships at Leiden Observatory and Steward Observatory. He joined the faculty of the Astronomy Program at the University of Maryland, before moving to Johns Hopkins University, where he was the Dr. A. Hermann Pfund Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy. Heckman was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2013 and became a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2020. He joins the School of Earth and Space Exploration in 2024.