Michael Balogh

Professor Balogh obtained his BSc from McMaster University (Physics and Mathematics, 1994), and PhD in Astrophysics from University of Victoria in 1999. He was a postdoctoral fellow at Durham University, UK, from 2000-2004, before taking up a faculty position at the University of Waterloo. In addition to his research and teaching activities, Prof. Balogh has been a leader in the Canadian astronomical community. He was Chair of the Board of Directors for the Gemini Observatory (2012-2014), Vice-Chair and then Chair of the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (2023-2025), and a member of the Board of Directors for the Thirty Meter Telescope (2024-). He has served on the Ground Based Astronomy Committee, the CASCA/ACURA TMT Advisory Committee (Chair 2017-2024) and the Long Range Plan Implementation Committee of CASCA.

• Exoplanets
• Planet Formation (theory)
• Galaxy Formation and evolution (observations)

Most of Professor Balogh's research has used the world’s largest telescopes to study the physical properties of distant galaxies. Through spectroscopy we can learn about the distances, ages, chemical composition and star formation histories of these galaxies. As the light we observe from more distant objects originated at earlier times, by observing ever more distant systems we can reconstruct the changes that occur over time to populations of galaxies. His particular expertise lies in trying to understand the source of the puzzling link between galaxy growth rates and surrounding large-scale structure, many orders of magnitude larger than the galaxies themselves. More recently, he has begun theoretical work to understand the formation of planets. Planet formation involves the growth of solid particles from micron-sized dust grains to terrestrial and gas-giant planets in less than ten million years, and many stages of this process are unknown. He is working with a team of bright undergraduate students to develop a one-dimensional model that predicts the chemical composition of planetary atmospheres, as a probe of the main physical processes that drive growth from the embryo (moon-mass) phase to full planets.

• 1999 PhD Physics and Astronomy, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC Canada
• 1995 BSc Honours Mathematics and Physics, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON Canada

• 2020 Executive Award for Exceptional Service, Canadian Astronomical Society (CASCA)
• 2007-2011, Early Researcher Award, University of Waterloo

• 2024-Board of Directors for the Thirty Meter Telescope
• 2024 Chair, Future of Physics Committee (Department of Physics and Astronomy)
• 2023-2025 Vice-Chair and then Chair of the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope
• 2020- Ground Based Astronomy Committee, CASCA
• 2017-2024 Chair, CASCA/ACURA TMT Advisory Committee
• 2015-2021 Associate Chair, Undergraduate (U Waterloo)
• 2014-2015 CASCA Long Range Plan Midterm Review Committee
• 2011-2024 CASCA Long Range Plan Implementation Committee
• 2010-2014 Board of Directors, Gemini Observatory (Chair 2012-2014)
• 2009-2012 CASCA Awards Committee
• 2006-2009 Optical and Infrared Astronomy in Canada (CASCA subcommittee), Chair

• Member, International Astronomical Union (IAU)
• Member, Canadian Astronomical Society (CASCA)

• Waterloo Centre for Astrophysics

• PHYS 122 - Waves, Electricity and Magnetism
  • Taught in 2024
• PHYS 275 - Planets
  • Taught in 2020, 2021, 2023, 2024
• PHYS 474 - Galaxies
  • Taught in 2020, 2024

* Only courses taught in the past 5 years are displayed.

• Morgan, C. R, Balogh, M. et al., (2024) A Virgo Environmental Survey Tracing Ionised Gas Emission (VESTIGE): XVI. The ubiquity of truncated star-forming discs across the Virgo cluster environment, A&A https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2024A%26A...691A..20M/abstract
• Sazonova, L, Morgan, C., Balogh, M. et al. (2024), RMS asymmetry: a robust metric of galaxy shapes in images with varied depth and resolution, OJAp
• Xie, L., De Lucia, G., Fontanot, F., Hirschmann, M., Bahe, Y., Balogh, M. et al. (2024), The first quenched galaxies, when and how?, ApJL
• Cheng, I., Woods, T., Cote, P. et al. (2024), FORECASTOR -- I. Finding Optics Requirements and Exposure times for the Cosmological Advanced Survey Telescope for Optical and UV Research mission, AJ.
• Gully, H., Hatch, N., Bahe, Y., Balogh, M. et al. (2024), Spitzer-selected z > 1.3 protocluster candidates in the LSST Deep Drilling Fields, MNRAS
• Edward, A. H., Balogh, M. et al., including J. Marchioni (2024), The stellar mass function of quiescent galaxies in protoclusters, MNRAS
• Cheng, C., Villaume, A., Balogh, M., Brodie, J., Martin-Navarro, I., Romanowsky, A., van Dokkum, P. (2023), Initial mass function variability from the integrated light of diverse stellar systems, MNRAS
• Baxter, D., Cooper, M., Balogh, M. et al. including Reeves, A (2023), When the Well Runs Dry: Modeling Environmental Quenching in Massive Clusters at z≳1, MNRAS
• Webb, K., Villaume, A., Balogh, M. et al. (2023), Still at odds with conventional galaxy evolution: the star formation history of ultradiffuse galaxy Dragonfly 44, MNRAS
• Baxter, D., Cooper, M., Balogh, M. et al. (2022), The GOGREEN survey: constraining the satellite quenching time-scale in massive clusters at z ≳ 1, MNRAS