Professor Daniel Thomas

Profile

I graduated in 1997 with first-class honour in Physics from the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich, Germany. I was awarded his PhD in 2000 by the same university with a thesis in Astrophysics studying the formation and evolution of galaxies.

I joined the Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences in 2026 as Head of School of Physics and Astronomy. Before this I was Professor of Astrophysics and Head of School at the University of Portsmouth, following roles as Research Fellow at the University of Oxford and the Max-Planck-Institute for extraterrestrial physics in Germany.

I am a space archaeologist: I pioneered the methodology for measuring the ages and formation timescales of distant galaxies from abundances of chemical elements measured from the light that galaxies emit. I co-founded the Citizen Science project Galaxy Zoo and was holding leadership roles in several large astronomical experiments including the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and the Dark Energy Survey. In 2020, I was included in the Highly Cited Researchers list from Clarivate and I am currently ranked in the top 23rd UK physicist by research.com.

Responsibilities

• Head of School
• Chair of the IOP Heads of Physics Forum

Research interests

I study the formation and evolution of galaxies with a focus on stellar populations and chemical enrichment. I develop stellar population models with variable element abundance ratios to derive physical properties of galaxies including age, metal content and chemical element abundances from spectrocopic galaxy data. I work with data from large galaxy surveys such as the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), the Dark Energy Survey (DES), the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI), and the ESO survey EMPOWER, as well as data from other large telescopes such as VLT and JWST.

With the aim of gaining an understanding of the physics underpinning galaxy formation I use large cosmological simulations (TNG, EAGLE, etc) to generate mock galaxy catalogues for direct comparison between the real and simulated universe.

Qualifications

• PhD

Professional memberships

• Fellow of Advance HE