Aaron Steffen

BIO

Aaron Steffen is an associate professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the UW-Stevens Point at Wausau campus. Steffen’s dissertation for his astronomy Ph.D. was “A Wide-Field X-ray Survey of the Lockman Hole.” He studied at UW-Madison and managed the university’s Pine Bluff Observatory where he supervised a staff of undergraduates and lived on-site. Steffen was director of the former UW-Marathon County, Wausau campus, planetarium.

RESEARCH INTERESTS

• Scholarship of teaching and learning
• Study of extrasolar planets
• Study of properties and evolution of supermassive black holes in active galaxies

PUBLICATIONS

Steffen, A. T., Brandt, W. N., Alexander, D. M., Gallagher, S. C., & Lehmer, B. D. (2007). “Chandra Stacking Constraints on the Contribution of 24 μm Spitzer Sources to the Unresolved Cosmic X-ray Background.” The Astrophysical Journal Letters. 667, 25–28. https://doi.org/10.1086/522046

I like to both wow students with astronomical concepts and to see the ‘Ah…’ moment when I attach a physics concept to something in their everyday lives.

-Aaron Steffen

QUOTE

“What’s so amazing that keeps us stargazing, and what do we think we might see?” – Kermit the Frog

LAST BOOK READ

“The Glass Universe” by Dava Dobel

ADVICE

Wear sunscreen!