Steven Finkelstein

Steven Finkelstein is a Professor at the University of Texas at Austin. He received his B.S. degree from the University of Washington in 2003, his PhD in 2008 from Arizona State University, and from there he took a postdoctoral position at Texas A&M University. In 2011 he earned a Hubble Postdoctoral Fellowship which he took to the University of Texas in Austin, where he was hired on as faculty in 2012. His research focuses on the formation and evolution of galaxies in the early universe, and the interplay of these sources with reionization. He makes use of the largest ground and space-based observatories, and is the principal investigator of a James Webb Space Telescope early release science program, as well as a co-PI of the first Webb public deep field survey (WDEEP). In the classroom he puts an emphasis on active learning, using flipped-classrooms to have students engage with the material in a hands-on manner when in person. He is married to Keely Finkelstein, an Associate Professor of Instruction in Astronomy at UT Austin, and they have two children.