Megan Donahue is a professor of physics and astronomy in the College of Natural Science. She was recently named one of MSU’s University Distinguished Professors in 2019.
I study clusters of galaxies and the massive galaxies that inhabit the centers of those clusters. The big question I’d like to answer is how a tiny, compact, little thing like a black hole can rule a huge galaxy.
Coming to Michigan State as a professor gave me a chance to teach from my own book in a more interactive way. Students answer questions in class and explain it to each other. If you can’t explain it, you probably don’t understand it.
MSU’s astronomy department is ranked in the top 25 nationally and is partnered with several other institutions and the country of Brazil to operate the SOAR telescope in Chile. We have a remote room here where we can control the instruments of the telescope and we can have students watching the data.
There’s a thirst out there for understanding the universe that we’re in and astronomy is humanity’s way of answering those big questions.
Reused with permission from WKAR.
