Rate My Professor Paul Eskridge

Dr. Paul Eskridge is Professor of Astronomy and Distinguished Faculty Scholar in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Minnesota State University, Mankato. He earned his PhD in Astronomy from the University of Washington in 1987. Eskridge's professional trajectory includes a research position at the University of Alabama from 1995 to 1997, after which he joined Minnesota State University, Mankato, progressing to his current full professorship. His academic work centers on extragalactic astronomy, with a focus on stellar populations, interstellar gas, chemical abundances in galaxies, and galaxy evolution. Specific research areas encompass galaxy morphology, star formation histories through ultraviolet-optical imaging, polar-ring galaxies, barred spiral galaxies, and interstellar medium properties.

Eskridge has contributed significantly to astronomical literature through peer-reviewed publications. Prominent examples include 'THE YOUNG STELLAR POPULATION OF THE NEARBY LATE-TYPE GALAXY NGC 1311' (2010), 'LIFTING THE VEIL OF DUST FROM NGC 0959: THE IMPORTANCE OF A PIXEL-BASED TWO-DIMENSIONAL EXTINCTION CORRECTION' (2010), 'Revealing the Stellar Populations Underlying the Dust in NGC 0959' (2010), 'H II Region Abundances in the Polar Ring of NGC 2685' (2009), 'Arm Structure in Anemic Spiral Galaxies' (2007), 'A Hubble Space Telescope Survey of the Mid-Ultraviolet Morphology of Nearby Galaxies' (2002), 'Near-Infrared and Optical Morphology of Spiral Galaxies' (2002), and 'Eskridge & Schweitzer, The Ursa Minor Dwarf Galaxy' (2001). His scholarship has received 1,562 citations. At Minnesota State University, Mankato, Eskridge teaches courses such as Introduction to Astronomy (AST-101) and Life in the Universe (AST-115W), and facilitates public astronomy open houses and observatory tours at the Andreas and Standeford facilities.