Richard Pogge
College of Arts and Sciences Distinguished Professor of Astronomy, Vice Chair for Instrumentation
he/him/his
4067 McPherson Laboratory
Areas of Expertise
- Astronomical Instrumentation
- Nebular Abundances
- Active Galactic Nuclei
- Extrasolar Planets
Education
- Ph.D. 1988, Astronomy & Astrophysics, University of California at Santa Cruz
- M.S. 1985, Astronomy, University of California Santa Cruz
- B.S. 1983, Physics, California Institute of Technology
Prof. Pogge came to OSU as a postdoc in 1989 and joined the faculty in 1992. His research combines an interest in the astrophysics of gaseous nebulae from interstellar gas to active galactic nuclei with the development advanced astronomical instrumentation for ground-based optical/infrared observatories. He is a co-discoverer of the Narrow Line Seyfert 1 subclass of AGN and did early work on the ionization morphology of active galactic nuclei. At OSU he has worked on the design and construction of advanced instrumentation for ground-based optical/infrared telescopes with the Astronomy department's Imaging Sciences Laboratory, which he has led since 2007. Recent instrumentation projects include the twin Multi-Object Double Spectrographs (MODS) for the Large Binocular Telescope and robotic fiber positioner systems for SDSS-V. His current research interests are focused on understanding and revising the absolute metallicity calibration of HII regions in nearby and distant galaxies, a topic of crucial importance for understanding the chemical evolution and growth of galaxies over cosmic time, and he continues work on active galactic nuclei and exoplanets. From 2019-2021 he served on the National Academy of Sciences Astro2020 Decadal Survey panel on Optical and Infrared Observations from the Ground. In 2021 he was named a College of Arts and Sciences Distinguished Professor of Astronomy.