Dr. David Fegan

Dr. David Fegan has served as a Research Astrophysicist at University College Dublin (UCD) since the mid-1960s. He started his research in Cosmic Radiation and subsequently branched out into High Energy Astrophysics and Astroparticle Physics. Following four decades as a member of the science faculty at UCD he is now Emeritus Professor at UCD and Senior Vice President of the Royal Irish Academy.

As a distinguished astrophysicist, Dr. Fegan has had a long association with the Whipple and VERITAS [Very Energetic Radiation Imaging Telescope Array System] international research collaborations centered at the Smithsonian observation site near Tucson, Arizona, USA. He is a pioneer in the field of TeV gamma-ray astronomy using the air-Cherenkov technique. TeV astrophysics led to a huge leap in our understanding of the physics of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN).

In addition to his research work, Dr. Fegan has taught a variety of courses at UCD including astrophysics, laser physics, solid state physics, quantum mechanics, optics, instrumentation, electronics, computing, modeling and computational physics.

He has also published extensively on astronomical and cosmic ray instrumentation with over 150 papers in refereed journals and over 200 papers in conference proceedings. He is an elected fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society, the International Astronomical Union, the American Physical Society, the Irish National Research Support Fund Board and the Royal Irish Academy, and has received several awards including the President's Research Award (UCD) in 1990.