Citizenship United Kingdom Doctoral advisor David Axon Fields Astronomy, Astrophysics | Nationality British Residence Florida, United States Academic advisor David Axon | |
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Institutions University of Hertfordshire
Rochester Institute of Technology
Florida Institute of Technology Doctoral students Isaac Silver, Raad Foadi Alma mater University of Hertfordshire Books Astronomy Saves the World: Securing Our Future Through Exploration and Education | ||
Daniel Batcheldor (born 1978) is a British astrophysicist, a professor at Florida Institute of Technology, Head of the Department of Physics and Space Sciences, Director of the Olin Observatory, and Director of the Jacobus Kapteyn Telescope.
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Florida tech s daniel batcheldor launches experiment to the iss
Early life and Education
Daniel Batcheldor was born in Trowbridge in the county of Wiltshire, England. In 1986 his family moved from the village of Holt to village of Bathampton in the county of Somerset. He attended King Edward's School, Bath at Broad Street and North Road, and served in the HQ company of the 6th Battalion Light Infantry Army Reserve (reformed in 2007 to The Rifles) between 1995 and 1998.
In 2000 he served as a student support astronomer at the Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes with responsibilities for the Jacobus Kapteyn Telescope. He received a bachelor's degree in Astronomy from the University of Hertfordshire in 2001, and in 2004 he completed his Ph.D. at the same institution under the direction of David Axon.
Career
In 2004 Batcheldor moved to a research position at Rochester Institute of Technology where he also taught Physics. In 2010 he moved to a faculty position at Florida Institute of Technology and became the Director of the Olin Observatory.
In 2014 he took up his current position as Head of the Department of Physics and Space Sciences at Florida Institute of Technology.
Astrophysics
Batcheldor is a leading expert in the field of supermassive black holes and their relationships with galaxies. His scientific accomplishments include the quantification of selection effects in the M–σ relation., the demonstration of low signal-to-noise data in published supermassive black holes mass estimates as well as comparative supermassive black holes mass measurements, and the discovery of a spatially offset supermassive black hole in the galaxy Messier 87.
Instrumentation
Batcheldor led the efforts to calibrate the NICMOS instrument on board the Hubble Space Telescope to enable imaging polarimetry at the level of 1%.
In 2012 he began efforts to bring back to operational status the 1.0-m Jacobus Kapteyn Telescope that had been taken out of service in 2003. This facility is now a remote observatory operated by the Southeastern Association for Research in Astronomy (SARA). Batcheldor is the principal investigator for the SpectraCAM charge injection device payload scheduled to be tested on the NanoRacks External Platform on the International Space Station.
Outreach
Batcheldor is a proponent of improving the scientific literacy of the general public. He is author of Astronomy Saves the World: Securing our Future Through Exploration and Education (ISBN 0997247509, ISBN 978-0997247503) that advocates for the introduction of astronomy as part of the core K-12 curriculum.