Daniel C. Jacobs

Professor, School Of Earth and Space Exploration

Danny Jacobs is a physicist and astronomical instrument builder. He is a professor in the School of Earth and Space Exploration and Associate Director of ASU's Interplanetary Initiative as director of its smallsat lab. His Low frequency Cosmology group is developing the redshifted 21cm line as a probe of the dark ages and first stars. One of the last unexplored moments of the cosmic calendar this epoch is a laboratory for fundamental physics and a key moment in our cosmic origin story. Danny's work spans many applied domains from radio development to data intensive supercomputing. He is the PI of several analysis programs in this area as well as Project Scientist and lead of ASU's contribution to the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array (HERA) which is currently the largest, most sensitive, 21cm cosmology radio telescope. Danny leads several technology development projects including the long-running ECHO drone-mounted calibrator program and an NSF CAREER to develop the next generation cosmology arrays.

At ASU as an Associate Director of the Interplanetary Initiative he also takes a leadership role in the development of small satellites and related technology. He directs the Interplanetary lab which supports development of ASU smallsat projects across the design, build, test, fly life-cycle. He also leads his own missions as Executive Producer of the Lightcube cubesat, co-I of the Star Planet Activity Research CubeSat (SPARCS), and PI of the DORA mission, a cubesat testbed for future space-based radio interferometers.

Danny received a BS in physics and astrophysics from New Mexico Tech and a masters in physics from Montana State University where he worked in the Space Sciences and Engineering Lab (SSEL). He holds a PhD from University of Pennsylvania for a thesis on first results from the Precision Array for Probing the Epoch of Reionization (PAPER). 

Danny was born and raised in Omaha, NE graduating from Central High School where he was captain of the debate squad.