Academics

Bio

Dr. Thomas Pannuti is an assistant professor of space science in the Department of Earth and Space Sciences at Morehead State University, joining the faculty in 2006. A native of Irvington, New York, Dr. Pannuti attended Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, and earned his Bachelor's Degree in Physics (cum laude) from the Department of Physics, Applied Physics and Astronomy in 1994. He then enrolled in graduate studies in physics at the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, New Mexico, completing his Master's Degree in 1998 and his PhD in 2000. His dissertation (entitled "Supernova Remnants and Cosmic-Ray Acceleration in Nearby Galaxies") involved multi-wavelength (X-ray, optical and radio) observations of supernova remnants in nearby spiral galaxies. After graduation, Dr. Pannuti worked as a Postdoctoral Associate at the MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research from 2000 through 2003. He then worked as a Postdoctoral Scholar at the Spitzer Science Center at Caltech in Pasadena, CA from 2003 through 2006.

Dr. Pannuti's main research work centers on multi-wavelength (mainly X-ray, optical, infrared and radio) observations of Galactic and extragalactic supernova remnants. The primary fields of research activity for these sources are non-thermal X-ray emission from supernova remnants (and its relationship with cosmic-ray acceleration by these sources), mixed-morphology supernova remnants (supernova remnants that feature shell-like radio morphologies with contrasting center-filled thermal X-ray morphologies) and multi-wavelength searches for supernova remnants in nearby galaxies. Recently, Dr. Pannuti has also become active in radio monitoring observations of blazars, the luminous cores of distant galaxies. To pursue his research, Dr. Pannuti has conducted observations with radio telescopes in the United States, Germany and Australia (along with the 21-Meter Space Tracking Antenna at Morehead State University) as well as optical telescopes in Arizona and California and orbiting X-ray observatories. Dr. Pannuti also maintains the "Institute for Stellar Necrology Laboratory" in the Space Science Center, a laboratory of Linux boxes dedicated to research projects conducted by undergraduate students. He has served as first author or co-author on over 30 publications in such refereed journals as the Astrophysical Journal, the Astronomical Journal, Astronomy & Astrophysics and the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.