About Us

We are an astronomy and instrumentation research group in the Astronomy Department at Columbia University.

The Schiminovich group primarily works on galaxy cosmology and astronomical instrumentation, mostly with the goal of studying the circumgalactic medium (CGM), loosely defined as the gas in between a galaxy's disk and its virial radius. Our research group is currently working on the development and upgrade of two different instruments: the Circumgalactic Hydrogen-Alpha Spectrograph (CHaS), a ground-based spectrograph to be installed at the MDM Observatory, and the Faint Intergalactic Redshift Emission Balloon (FIREBall), an UV balloon-borne telescope. In the past, we have also worked on the Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX), on which Professor Schiminovich was a lead Co-I, and whose data we still use for analysis projects. Our group collaborates with a variety of institutions, mostly in the US and France, including Caltech, the University of Arizona, JPL, LAM and CNES. 

For more information about our research, make sure to click here or check out our publications. For more on Professor Schiminovich and the rest of the group, you can access our bios.