J Anthony Tyson

Headshot of J Anthony Tyson

Distinguished Research Professor

514B Physics Building

Research Interests:

Professor Tony Tyson joined the faculty at UCD in 2004. His research is in experimental physics and cosmology, and includes development of new astronomical surveys, new detectors, astronomical instrumentation and analysis algorithms -- aimed at unraveling the nature of dark energy and dark matter. He has developed cameras and analysis techniques for imaging of the distant, younger universe.

While at Bell Labs, he applied CCDs to astronomy, discovering the "faint blue galaxies." Leveraging this backdrop of billions of galaxies, he pioneered a technique for imaging foreground dark matter concentrations via their gravitational lens distortions of the distant galaxies -- "weak gravitational lensing."

Tyson was the founding Director and is now the Chief Scientist for the Rubin Observatory and its Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST), the next major survey facility. In 2010 the LSST was ranked as the top new ground-based facility in astrophysics. Some of the R&D is being carried out here at UC Davis. New frontiers will be enabled by LSST, https://rubinobservatory.org https://rubinobservatory.org/news/sharpening-our-cosmic-focus. In July 2026 LSST began its 10-year sky survey. Its thirty trillion photometric measurements of twenty billion objects will enable exploration of exciting new questions in a variety of areas of astronomy and fundamental physics.

Research Areas

Career History

  • Ph.D., University of Wisconsin, 1967
  • AFOSR Fellow, University of Chicago, 1967-1969
  • Member of the Technical Staff, AT&T Bell Laboratories, 1969-1985
  • Distinguished MTS, Bell Laboratories, 1985-2004
  • Professor, University of California, Davis, 2004-Present

Honors

  • Gravity Research Foundation award, 1970
  • IR 100 Award, Industrial Research, 1985
  • Elected Fellow, American Physical Society, 1993
  • Aaronson Memorial Prize, 1996
  • Elected to National Academy of Sciences, 1997
  • Elected Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1997
  • Hon. D.Sc., University of Chicago, 1998
  • Scott Lecturer, Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge University, 1998
  • APS Centennial Speaker, 1999
  • Elected Fellow of the American Philosophical Society, 2000
  • Hintze Lecturer, Oxford University, 2012
  • Named in 2026 Time100 most influential people, 2026