Professor Robert J. Brunner

Professor Brunner investigates the nature of matter and energy in the Universe. He studies the statistical clustering of galaxies drawn from large astronomical surveys, and the relationship between galaxies and active galactic nuclei, which are theorized to be powered by supermassive black holes. To aid in his research, Professor Brunner founded and serves as the principal investigator for the Laboratory for Cosmological Data Mining, where his group deploys advanced statistical analysis and machine learning algorithms on supercomputers to characterize the nature of matter and energy in the Universe. Professor Brunner received his B.S. in Physics from Purude University and his Ph.D. in Astrophysics from the Johns Hopkins University. He was a Postdoctoral Scholar in Astronomy at the California Institute of Technology prior to joining the faculty at the University of Illinois in 2002.