No ratings yet
Taught by or worked with Siegfried? Your rating helps other students choose.
Siegfried Eggl is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, with affiliate appointments in the Department of Astronomy and the National Center for Supercomputing Applications Center for Astrophysical Surveys. He joined the faculty in 2021. Eggl earned a B.S. in Astrophysics from the University of Vienna in 2005, followed by an M.S. in Astrophysics in 2008, an M.S. in Computational Physics in 2009, and a Ph.D. in Astrophysics in 2013, all from the University of Vienna. Prior to his current position, he served as Acting Assistant Professor in Astronomy at the University of Washington from 2018 to 2021, as a postdoctoral researcher in Planetary Science at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory and California Institute of Technology from 2016 to 2018, and as a postdoctoral researcher in Astronomy at the IMCCE/Paris Observatory from 2013 to 2016.
His research focuses on astrodynamics, planetary defense, celestial navigation, dynamical systems, and space domain awareness. Eggl has contributed to major projects including the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission, with co-authored publications in high-impact journals such as Nature on momentum transfer from the kinetic impact on asteroid Dimorphos and on satellite brightness effects. He has authored or co-authored works including the book Planetary Habitability in Binary Systems and chapters on habitability of planets in binary star systems. Eggl is a member of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, the American Astronomical Society Division on Dynamical Astronomy, the International Academy of Astronautics, and the International Astronomical Union, where he serves as co-lead of the Centre for the Protection of the Dark and Quiet Sky from Satellite Constellation Interference. His honors include an asteroid named 28751 Eggl in recognition of his contributions to planetary science, AIAA and Space Foundation awards as part of the DART team, the LSST Architect Award, and multiple best paper awards. He teaches courses such as Aerospace Dynamical Systems, Planetary Defense, Advanced Orbital Mechanics, and Dynamical Systems Theory.
A March 2026 Science Advances study led by University of Illinois researchers confirms NASA's DART mission changed the Didymos-Dimorphos system's solar orbit, validating kinetic impactors for asteroid deflection.
Photo by Antoine Dautry on Unsplash
Photo by Chris Liverani on Unsplash
Photo by Peter Burdon on Unsplash
Photo by Andrii Zhuk on Unsplash
Photo by EESOFUFFZICH on Unsplash
Photo by Google DeepMind on Unsplash
Photo by Gabriele Malaspina on Unsplash