John Hewitt

I am an astrophysicist interested in energetic processes that occur in our own Milky Way and nearby galaxies. I focus on the acceleration and propagation of cosmic rays, which drive chemistry in interstellar clouds. I am also studying the unique environment at our galaxy's center, which hosts the highest density of massive stars and the closest massive black hole.  My research uses ground and space observatories that span the entire electromagnetic spectrum from radio to infrared to gamma rays.

I grew up in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia before moving to Lake Mary, Florida for high school. At Northwestern University, I received a BA in 2004 and my PhD in 2009. My doctoral research with Dr. Farhad Yusef-Zadeh focused on the shock interaction between supernova blast waves and dense interstellar clouds using NRAO's Very Large Array and Green Bank Radio Telescope. As part of my dissertation, I spent time working with Dr. Jeonghee Rho, analyzing data from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope at Caltech's IPAC in 2007-8.

In the fall of 2009 I began a three year NASA postdoctoral fellowship with Dr. Rob Petre, head of the X-ray Astrophysics Lab at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. In 2012, I moved down the hall to the Astroparticle Physics Lab and joined the Fermi LAT collaboration to work on gamma-ray observations of particle acceleration in supernova remnants.

I joined the faculty of UNF in the fall of 2015. Students working with me in my lab at UNF pursue research on supernovae and compact objects such as black holes and pulsars. As a member of the Fermi LAT collaboration, I work with ~300 other scientists around the world to explore the universe in gamma-rays. This work is supported by grants from the National Science Foundation and NASA. Students who have worked on research projects with me have gone on to graduate school at the Univ. of Maryland, UC Berkeley and Princeton.

I am active in public astronomy outreach through Astronomy Nights at UNF and #popscope, an urban astronomy movement that promotes sidewalk astronomy.