Charles Steidel

Charles Steidel is the Lee A. DuBridge Professor of Astronomy in the Division of Physics, Mathematics and Astronomy at the California Institute of Technology. He earned his A.B. in Astrophysical Sciences from Princeton University in 1984 and his Ph.D. in Astronomy from Caltech in 1990. After completing a Hubble Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of California, Berkeley from 1990 to 1993, Steidel served as Assistant Professor of Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 1993 to 1995. He joined Caltech in 1995 as Assistant Professor of Astronomy, advancing to Associate Professor in 1997-1998, Professor from 1998 to 2004, and assuming the DuBridge Professorship in 2004. He also served as Executive Officer for Astronomy at Caltech from 2004 to 2007.

Steidel's research in Space Science focuses on the interplay between galaxy formation and the intergalactic and circumgalactic media during the epoch of structure development in the universe. His group employs spectroscopic observations from the W.M. Keck Observatory, Palomar 200-inch telescope, Hubble, Spitzer, and Chandra to study star-forming galaxies and associated gas at high redshifts (z ≈ 2–3), particularly through the Keck Baryonic Structure Survey (KBSS). In 1995, using the newly commissioned Keck 10-meter telescopes, Steidel led the discovery of the then-most distant galaxies, dating back more than 12 billion years, fundamentally advancing the observational study of galactic evolution. As co-Principal Investigator and Project Scientist, he oversaw the development and commissioning of MOSFIRE, a multi-object near-infrared spectrograph for Keck I, from 2004 to 2012. Notable publications include "Strong Nebular Line Ratios in the Spectra of z ∼ 2–3 Star-forming Galaxies: First Results from KBSS-MOSFIRE" (Steidel et al., 2014, Astrophysical Journal) and "The Structure and Kinematics of the Circumgalactic Medium from Far-Ultraviolet Spectra of z ≃ 2–3 Galaxies" (Steidel et al., 2010, Astrophysical Journal). Steidel has received the Gruber Cosmology Prize (2010), MacArthur Fellowship (2002–2007), Helen B. Warner Prize (1997), David and Lucile Packard Foundation Fellowship (1997–2002), NSF Young Investigator Award (1994), Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellowship (1994), and was elected to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (2006). He has delivered the Lyman Spitzer Lecture at Princeton (2001), Sackler Lecture at Leiden Observatory (2006), and Mohler Prize Lecture at Michigan (2009), and chaired advisory committees for Keck Observatory, Thirty Meter Telescope, and Hubble Space Telescope.

Professional Email: ccs@astro.caltech.edu