Daniel M. Scolnic | |
|---|---|
| Alma mater | Massachusetts Institute of Technology (BS) (2007) Johns Hopkins University (DPhil) (2013) |
| Known for | Using Type Ia supernova as standard candles to measure cosmic distances and the Hubble constant (H₀). |
| Awards | Packard Fellowship for Science and Engineering (2019) Department of Energy Early Career Award (2021) Sloan Research Fellowship in Physics (2022) Fred Kavli Plenary Lectureship at the 242nd American Astronomical Society meeting (2023) Named among Clarivate's Most Highly Cited Scientists (2023) Selected for the Defense Science Study Group by the Institute for Defense Analyses (2023) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Astrophysics |
| Institutions | Duke University |
Daniel M. Scolnic is an American astrophysicist and an associate professor at Duke University. [1]
He is known for his contributions to observational cosmology, particularly in measuring the expansion rate of the universe using Type Ia supernovae. [2] [3] [4] [5]
Scolnic did his BS in Physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2007. His dissertation was titled Solving the system of atomic rate equations during recombination and was advised by Edmund Bertschinger, a theoretical astrophysicist, cosmologist, and professor of physics at the university. [6]
He completed his PhD in physics from Johns Hopkins University in 2013, where he worked on analysis of supernovae from the Pan-STARRS survey funded by the United States Airforce to discover killer asteroids. His dissertation title was ‘Combing large samples of type Ia supernovae to constrain dark energy’. [7] His doctoral advisor was Adam Riess.
After completing his PhD from John Hopkins University, Scolnic was a Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics Fellow at the University of Chicago [8] and later became a NASA Hubble Fellow at the same university. [9]
In 2019, Scolnic became an assistant professor at Duke University in the Physics Department at the Trinity College of Arts and Sciences. During that year, he was awarded the Packard Fellowship in Science and Engineering. [10]
In 2021, Scolnic received the Early Career Research Program award from the United States Department of Energy Office of Science for his research topic, "Reducing Top Systematic Uncertainties in Cosmological Analyses with Type Ia Supernovae and Contaminated Photometric Samples". [11]
In 2022, he was named a Sloan Fellow for that year. [12]
In 2023, Scolnic became an associate professor. [13] The same year, American Astronomical Society (AAS) named him as the Fred Kavli Plenary Lecturer for their 242nd Meeting. [14] Scolnic was also selected for the Defense Study Group by the Institute for Defense Analyses.
In 2024, he was listed among the most highly cited researchers by Clarivate. [15]
Since 2025, Scolnic has also been an associate professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Pratt School of Engineering at Duke University. [16]
At Duke University, he co-leads the Duke Cosmology Group, focusing on observational tools to measure the universe's expansion history and exploring fundamental questions about dark energy. [17] [18]
He is known for his work on measuring the expansion history of the universe using Type Ia supernovae. He helped lead the development of the Pantheon and Pantheon+ compilations, the largest and most systematically calibrated supernova datasets to date. These have become key tools for constraining dark energy and the Hubble constant. Scolnic is also a member of the SH0ES (Supernovae H0 for the Equation of State) team, contributing to precise local measurements of the Hubble constant and the ongoing investigation of the “Hubble tension.” His work emphasizes data calibration, simulations, and open science practices, and has informed the design and goals of major upcoming missions like the Roman Space Telescope and the Rubin Observatory. [19] [20]
In 2025, Scolnic made an appearance on NPR Science Friday. [21]
Scolnic currently lives in Durham, North Carolina in the United States.
Scolnic has more than 46000 citations in Google Scholar and an h-index of 86. [22]
Some of his most cited publications have over 500 citations, including: