MIT Kavli Institute Directory

Claude R. Canizares

Vice President; Bruno Rossi Professor of Physics; Associate Director for MIT of the Chandra X-ray Observatory Center Faculty

Professor Canizares is Vice President and the Bruno Rossi Professor of Physics at MIT. He has responsibility for MIT’s major international partnerships and oversees the MIT Lincoln Laboratory.

Professor Canizares earned his BA, MA and Ph.D. in physics from Harvard University. He came to MIT as a postdoctoral fellow in 1971 and joined the faculty in 1974. He has served as Director of the Center for Space Research (1990-2001), Associate Provost (2001-2006), and most recently as Vice President for Research & Associate Provost (2006-2013). Professor Canizares is a principal investigator on NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. He has also worked on several other space astronomy missions and is author or co-author of more than 230 scientific papers.

Research interests:

Claude Canizares is the Associate Director of the Chandra X-ray Observatory Center and a principal investigator on NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, having led the development of the Chandra High Resolution Transmission Grating Spectrometer. Canizares’s main research interests are high resolution x-ray spectroscopy and plasma diagnostics of supernova remnants and clusters of galaxies, X-ray studies of dark matter, X-ray properties of quasars and active galactic nuclei, and observational cosmology.

Representative publications:

Implications of X-Ray Line Variations for 4U1822-371. L. Ji, N. S. Schulz, M. A. Nowak, C. R. Canizares, ApJ 729 102-112, 2011.

TGCat: The Chandra Transmission Grating Data Catalog and Archive. D. P. Huenemoerder, A. Mitschang, D. Dewey, M.A. Nowak, N.S. Schulz, J.S. Nichols, J.E. Davis, J.C. Houck, H.L. Marshall, M. S. Noble, D. Morgan, C.R.Canizares, The Astronomical Journal 141 129-139, 2011.

Detection of A Transient X-ray Absorption Line Intrinsic to the BL Lacertae Object H 2356-309. T. Fang, D.A. Boute, P.J. Humphrey, C.R. Canizares, ApJ 731 46-53, 2011.

Evolution and Hydrodynamics of the Very-Broad X-ray Line Emission in SN 1987A. D. Dewey, V.V. Dwarkadas, F. Haberl, R. Sturm, C.R. Canizares, ApJ 752 103-125, 2012.