Joined the laboratory in 2015
- PhD, Physics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2005
- B.S., Engineering Physics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2000
- Theoretical astrophysics, nuclear astrophysics, high energy density plasma physics, and fusion energy
Research
My research focuses on (1) the growth and evolution of galaxies over the age of the Universe, as well as understanding the behavior of the hot, diffuse plasmas that constitute much of the baryons in and around galaxies (for example, the interstellar medium) and (2) the behavior of high energy density plasmas as applied to terrestrial and astrophysical environments and fusion energy. I do this using numerical simulations on some of the world’s biggest supercomputers, and by comparing those simulations to astronomical observations and nuclear and plasma experiments. In relation to FRIB, I am particularly interested in modeling plasmas as applied to fusion energy.
Biography
I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago and went to the University of Illinois as an undergraduate and graduate student to study physics (BS in Engineering Physics, 2000; PhD in Physics, 2005). I spent most of my PhD in residence in the Laboratory for Computational Astrophysics at the University of California at San Diego. After that, I spent three years as a Director’s Postdoctoral Fellow at Los Alamos National Laboratory before coming to Michigan State University in 2008. I am one of the co-founders of the Department of Computational Mathematics, Science and Engineering and am currently the Director of the Institute for Cyber-Enabled Research. I’m interested in understanding how galaxies form and evolve over the age of the universe, in how plasmas behave in extreme conditions, and how students learn about computational and data science.
How students can contribute as part of my research team
Undergraduate and graduate students are key members of my research group. Our work focuses on using computational models and data science techniques to understand galaxies, and involves software development, running and analyzing simulations, making synthetic observations of those simulations, and comparing to real astronomical observations (from, e.g., the Hubble Space Telescope or the SOAR telescope) and plasma physics experiments (such as the MARZ platform on Sandia’s Z Machine). I offer projects for students that can range from data analysis suitable for first-year undergraduates through software development and simulation campaigns that would constitute an entire PhD thesis. Much of this work ties to FRIB’s mission of probing matter under extreme conditions, particularly in astrophysical environments.
Scientific publications
- The Impact of Modeling Assumptions in Galactic Chemical Evolution Models, Benoit Côté, Brian W. O'Shea, Christian Ritter, Falk Herwig, Kim A. Venn, ApJ, 835, 128 (2017).
- Validating Semi-analytic Models of High-redshift Galaxy Formation Using Radiation Hydrodynamical Simulations, Benoit Côté, Devin W. Silvia, Brian W. O'Shea, Britton Smith, and John H. Wise, ApJ, 859, 67 (2018).
- Formation of massive black holes in rapidly growing pre-galactic gas clouds, Wise, J.H., Regan, J.A., O’Shea, B.W. et al., Nature 566, 85–88 (2019).
- Atmospheric Circulation in Simulations of the AGN–CGM Connection at Halo Masses ∼1013.5 M, Deovrat Prasad, G. Mark Voit, Brian W. O'Shea, ApJ 932, 18 (2022).
- As a Matter of Dynamical Range - Scale Dependent Energy Dynamics in MHD Turbulence, Philipp Grete, Brian W. O'Shea, Kris Beckwith, ApJL 942, L34 (2023).
