Aaron Roodman

Professor of Particle Physics and Astrophysics

Aaron Roodman is a professor of Particle Physics & Astrophysics here at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, specializing in observational cosmology. Trained in experimental particle physics, he spent two decades studying differences between Matter and antiMatter at both Fermilab and here at SLAC with the Babar experiment, before turning his research to astrophysics and cosmology initially with the Dark Energy Survey. He played a major role in the construction of the LSST Camera, the world's largest digital camera, and was the leader of the LSST Camera program and Deputy Director of the Rubin Observatory during its commissioning phase. Currently he is the Deputy Head of the Legacy Survey of Space Time as part of Rubin Observatory operations and his current research focuses on the study of Dark Energy via gravitational lensing.

Research Projects

Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument

DESI is the heart of a ground-based survey that will spend the first half of the next decade pinpointing the locations and spectra of up to 35 million galaxies and 2.4 million quasars across one-third of the night sky.

NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory's Legacy Survey of Space and Time

The Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) is a 10-year survey of the southern sky that is taking place at the NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory, located on the El Peñon peak of Cerro Pachón in northern Chile.

Research Highlights

The bold bet that built a telescope

Jun 23, 2025

Two decades ago, Stanford & SLAC took a gamble on an unproven telescope design with no funding, no home, and no official backing. Now, with first images in hand, it's paying off!

, In the News