nidever

Dr. David Nidever has been an Assistant Research Professor in MSU's Physics Departmentsince 2017.  David's research is focused on the formation and evolution of galaxies,which is one of the cornerstone questions in our understanding of the universe on grandscales.  David studies relatively nearby galaxies which can be examined in much finer

detail than galaxies at much larger distances.  More specificially, he uses a number oflarge surveys to investigate the structure, formation and evolution of our own Milky Waygalaxy and its largest satellite galaxies, the Magellanic Clouds.  David enjoys thechallenges and rewards of working with Big Data in his research.  He recently created

one of the largest astronomical catalogs in the world, the NOAO Source Catalog, thatcontains information on three billions objects which he is "mining" with his students fornew scientific discoveries.Before joining MSU, David completed his Ph.D. at the University of Virginia, followedby a postdoctoral position working on the SDSS/APOGEE project and then a McLaughlin fellowship atthe University of Michigan.  David worked for a year as the LSST Data Management SurveyScience Lead and then joined the NOAO Data Lab group. 

Besides Astronomy, David also enjoys playing volleyball, hiking, reading books and hanging

out with his family.