I was born in Granite City, IL, on March 26, 1968, and grew up in the St. Louis area. I graduated from John Burroughs School in 1986 and then headed south for college. I graduated Magna Cum Laude from Rice University in 1990 with a B. S. in Electrical Engineering (also satisfying the requirements for the Space Physics major). I remained in Texas, going to the University of Texas at Austin for graduate work in astronomy where I specialized in quasars under Beverley Wills , earning my PhD in 1996. From 1996-1999 I was a postdoctoral fellow at the IGPP at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory working primarily with Wil van Breguel, and also Bob Becker on FIRST Survey related projects. From 1999-2002 I was a NOAO Postdoctoral Researcher and FUSE Science Team Associate working with Richard Green in Tucson, AZ. I've been an assistant professor in the department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Wyoming since 2002.
My research seeks to improve our understanding of active galactic nuclei and their relationship to their host galaxies. My work has been primarily observational in nature, the bulk of which rests on optical and infrared spectroscopy, but AGN emit significantly at all wavelengths and I do not limit my inquiry to one part of the spectrum. I have investigated quasars using the Chandra X-ray Observatory, XMM-Newton, FUSE, the Hubble Space Telescope, the IRTF, and the VLA, and optical telescopes including Keck, Lick, McDonald, and Kitt Peak Observatories. I work both on large samples that enable the phenomenology to be explored for an entire AGN population, as well as individual objects of special interest that may reveal important physics clearly because of their extreme nature.
Mike's Favorite SF/F Novels in no particular order:
Mike's favorite movies in no particular order:
Mike's most-used Web sites: