Timothy A. McKay is an astrophysicist and the Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of Physics at the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

. He is actively involved in physics education, including courses on “Physics for the Life Sciences” and Saturday Morning Physics.University of Michigan (2013). “Faculty Profile: Timothy McKay.” As of 2013, McKay's papers have over 30,000 citations and an

h-index The ''h''-index is an author-level metric that measures both the productivity and citation impact of the publications, initially used for an individual scientist or scholar. The ''h''-index correlates with obvious success indicators such as ...

of 66.Google Scholar (2013). "Citations: Timothy McKay." https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=fRjSWV8AAAAJ&hl=en He considers publication and education vital to the scientific enterprise: “science isn’t science until you’ve shared it with someone else.”McKay, T.A. (2 Feb 2009). "Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Astronomy (But Were Afraid to Ask)." Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti Reads. http://aareads.aadl.org/video/view/4046

Early career

Timothy McKay and his older brother were the first in their family to attend higher education; Timothy enrolled in physics primarily because his brother had done the same.University of Michigan (16 Apr 2010). "Focus on Faculty: Timothy McKay." YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8RIJzrgQXc McKay earned his BS

summa cum laude Latin honors are a system of Latin phrases used in some colleges and universities to indicate the level of distinction with which an academic degree has been earned. The system is primarily used in the United States. It is also used in some So ...

in 1986 at

Temple University Temple University (Temple or TU) is a public university, public Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was founded in 1884 by the Baptists, Baptist minister Russell Conwell an ...

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

, and then his PhD in 1992 at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chic ...

.McKay, T.A. (2011). "Personal CV". http://www-personal.umich.edu/~tamckay/mckaywebcv.pdf From 1992 to 1995, he was a Leon Lederman Fellow at

Fermilab Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab), located just outside Batavia, Illinois, near Chicago, is a United States Department of Energy United States Department of Energy National Labs, national laboratory specializing in high-energy parti ...

; he was then hired to the faculty of the

, where he became Associate Chair for the undergraduate physics program in 2004 and then also Arthur F. Thurnau Professor in 2005. In 2008 he became Director of the LSA Honors Program for eight years, finishing his term in 2016. Since 2008, he has also been president of the UM Chapter of

Phi Beta Kappa The Phi Beta Kappa Society () is the oldest academic honor society in the United States, and the most prestigious, due in part to its long history and academic selectivity. Phi Beta Kappa aims to promote and advocate excellence in the liberal a ...

. McKay is passionate about undergraduate research, and is well known for his mentorship of students; he credits his own research experiences as an undergraduate with much of his success.

Recent work

Since 2003, Tim McKay has worked on the

Robotic Optical Transient Search Experiment The Robotic Optical Transient Search Experiment (ROTSE) is a multi-telescope experiment designed to observe the optical afterglow of gamma-ray bursts. The experiment currently consists of four telescopes located in Australia, Namibia, Turkey, a ...

(ROTSE) with

Carl Akerlof Carl William Akerlof (born March 5, 1938) is an American particle physicist and astrophysicist. A professor of physics at the University of Michigan, Akerlof initiated and led the Robotic Optical Transient Search Experiment (ROTSE),ROTSE (2013). "R ...

,University of Michigan (2011). "Faculty: Timothy McKay." African Studies Center at the International Institute. a collaboration between

Los Alamos National Laboratory Los Alamos National Laboratory (often shortened as Los Alamos and LANL) is one of the sixteen research and development laboratories of the United States Department of Energy (DOE), located a short distance northwest of Santa Fe, New Mexico, i ...

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) is a federal research facility in Livermore, California, United States. The lab was originally established as the University of California Radiation Laboratory, Livermore Branch in 1952 in response ...

, and the University of MichiganUniversity of Michigan (2001). "Robotic Optical Transient Search Experiment." http://www.umich.edu/~rotse/ which operates automated telescopes in the US, Namibia, Turkey, and Australia to provide full-sky optical coverage of

gamma ray bursts In gamma-ray astronomy, gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are immensely energetic explosions that have been observed in distant galaxies. They are the most energetic and luminous electromagnetic events since the Big Bang. Bursts can last from ten millise ...

.Robotic Optical Transient Search Experiment (2010). "ROTSE Home Page." http://www.rotse.net/ "He was a builder on the Sloan Digital Sky Survey project,The SDSS Collaboration et al. (2000). "Weak Lensing with Sloan Digital Sky Survey Commissioning Data: The Galaxy-Mass Correlation Function to 1 h−1 Mpc." The Astronomical Journal 120 1198 doi:10.1086/301540 and has worked on it since 1992. His group did the first weak lensing measurements in the SDSS and later built the largest galaxy cluster catalogsB. P. Koester et al. (2007). "A MaxBCG Catalog of 13,823 Galaxy Clusters from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey" The Astrophysical Journal 660 239 doi:10.1086/509599 derived from it. He has also worked on the Supernova/Acceleration Probe, which is tracking type Ia supernovas to better understand dark energy.Holz, D. (2008). "Supernova/Acceleration Probe." 2nd Annual International Workshop on Connection Between Particle Physics and Cosmology (PPC2008). http://ppc08.phys.unm.edu/menu/talk/ May22/holz.pdf His most recent astrophysics project is the

Dark Energy Survey The Dark Energy Survey (DES) is an astronomical survey designed to constrain the properties of dark energy. It uses images taken in the near-ultraviolet, visible, and near-infrared to measure the expansion of the universe using Type Ia supernova ...

."Dark Energy Survey (2013). "The Dark Energy Survey." http://www.darkenergysurvey.org/ McKay is also passionate about amateur science; he stresses important contributions that amateurs have made to the scientific enterprise, and even considers himself a professional in a few fields and an amateur in many. McKay believes that science is not just about uncovering new knowledge for experts, but also about spreading that knowledge to as many people as possible. McKay is developing a new education software called E²Coach that uses research analytics to develop customized curriculum and study strategies for each student. The system uses the Michigan Tailoring System, originally developed for the Center for Health Communications Research, and is designed to benefit all students, whether average students hoping to do better, students at risk of failure, or gifted students seeking more challenging material. It has been pilot-tested in four introductory physics courses so far. This project was funded by a grant from the Next Generation Learning Challenge, funded by the

Gates Foundation The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), a merging of the William H. Gates Foundation and the Gates Learning Foundation, is an American private foundation founded by Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates. Based in Seattle, Washington, it was ...

and

Hewlett Foundation The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, commonly known as the Hewlett Foundation, is a private foundation, established by Hewlett-Packard cofounder William Redington Hewlett and his wife Flora Lamson Hewlett in 1966. The Hewlett Foundation ...

Recognition

McKay was named a

Fellow of the American Physical Society The American Physical Society honors members with the designation ''Fellow'' for having made significant accomplishments to the field of physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its moti ...

in 2023, "for tireless efforts to catalyze systemic change and make STEM learning environments equitable and inclusive, as well as the use of data and technology to inform and improve STEM learning".

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:McKay, Timothy A. Year of birth missing (living people) Living people University of Michigan faculty Fellows of the American Physical Society Recipients of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers