Evan David Skillman (born January 27, 1955 in

Rochester, New York Rochester () is a City (New York), city in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York, the county seat, seat of Monroe County, New York, Monroe County, and the fourth-most populous in the state after New York City, Buffalo, New York, Buffalo, ...

) is an American astronomer and astrophysicist.

Education and career

Evan Skillman graduated in 1977 with a B.A. in physics from

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...

and in 1984 with a Ph.D. in astronomy from Seattle's

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattle a ...

. His Ph.D. thesis ''Physical Conditions in Giant Extragalactic H II Regions'' was supervised by . Skillman was a postdoc at the ASTRON Netherlands Foundation for Radio Astronomy, where his supervisor was , and then at the

University of Texas The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...

, where his supervisor was Gregory A. Shields. In 1989 Skillman became a faculty member in the

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Tw ...

's astronomy department, where he is now the director of the Minnesota Institute for Astrophysics and a College of Science and Engineering Distinguished Professor. He took leave of absence for sabbatical years at

Garching Garching bei München (''Garching near Munich'') or Garching is a town in Bavaria, Germany, near Munich. It is the home of several research institutes and university departments on its campus. It became a city on 14 September 1990. Location The ...

Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics The Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics (MPA) is a research institute located in Garching, just north of Munich, Bavaria, Germany. It is one of many scientific research institutes belonging to the Max Planck Society. The MPA is widely conside ...

, where his host was Simon White, and at the

University of Cambridge , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

's Institute of Astronomy, where his host was Stephen Smartt. In 2012 and 2013, Skillman was one of the leaders of the Panchromatic Hubble Andromeda Treasury (PHAT) project. Part of the project made available large amounts of

Hubble Space Telescope The Hubble Space Telescope (often referred to as HST or Hubble) is a space telescope that was launched into low Earth orbit in 1990 and remains in operation. It was not the first space telescope, but it is one of the largest and most versa ...

image data and used volunteer citizen scientists to analyze stellar clusters in the Andromeda Galaxy. The large number of citizen scientists accomplished in 12 days what would have taken the far smaller team of professional scientists approximately one year. Skillman has done research on "the

interstellar medium In astronomy, the interstellar medium is the matter and radiation that exist in the space between the star systems in a galaxy. This matter includes gas in ionic, atomic, and molecular form, as well as dust and cosmic rays. It fills interstella ...

, the stellar populations, the chemical abundances, and the

dark matter Dark matter is a hypothetical form of matter thought to account for approximately 85% of the matter in the universe. Dark matter is called "dark" because it does not appear to interact with the electromagnetic field, which means it does not ab ...

content of nearby galaxies, with a focus on dwarf galaxies." In 2018 he was elected a Fellow of the

American Physical Society The American Physical Society (APS) is a not-for-profit membership organization of professionals in physics and related disciplines, comprising nearly fifty divisions, sections, and other units. Its mission is the advancement and diffusion of k ...

for "observational constraints on the primordial helium abundance and significant contributions to understanding the chemical evolution of galaxies."

Family

His sister, Leslie Elaine Skillman-Hull (1953–2020), was an assistant professor in women's health care and an accomplished potter. In 1990 in Minnesota, Evan Skillman married Kimberley Ann Venn, now a professor of physics and astronomy at the

University of Victoria The University of Victoria (UVic or Victoria) is a public research university located in the municipalities of Oak Bay and Saanich, British Columbia, Canada. The university traces its roots to Victoria College, the first post-secondary instit ...

. They have a daughter, but are now divorced. He has since remarried.

Selected publications

Articles

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Books

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Skillman, Evan D. 1955 births Living people 20th-century American astronomers 21st-century American astronomers Cornell University alumni University of Washington alumni University of Minnesota faculty Fellows of the American Physical Society Scientists from Rochester, New York