• Associate Dean, Curriculum, Assessment & Analytics
  • Professor, Physics & Astronomy
  • Phone: 979-845-6456
  • Email: lmacri@tamu.edu
  • Office: Academic Building, 4th Floor
Lucas Macri headshot

Biography

Dr. Lucas Macri is a professor of physics and astronomy and a member of the George P. and Cynthia Woods Mitchell Institute for Fundamental Physics and Astronomy. He is Associate Dean for Curriculum, Assessment and Analytics in the College of Arts and Sciences and has served since 2017 as Associate Dean for Undergraduate and International Programs in the College of Science. Dr. Macri holds respective B.S. and Ph.D. degrees in physics and astronomy. He joined the Texas A&M faculty in 2008 as a member of the Department of Physics and Astronomy, where his National Science Foundation and National Aeronautics and Space Administration-supported research focuses on measuring precise and accurate distances to other galaxies using variable stars in order to determine the expansion rate of the universe. Dr. Macri led the development of Texas A&M’s graduate program in astronomy that launched in fall 2016. He has served since 2020 as chair of the LSST Corporation, non-profit alliance of 40 institutions helping the astronomical community prepare for the Vera Rubin Observatory's 10-year Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST). Dr. Macri also is a member of the Space Telescope Science Institute Council since 2019 and a co-principal investigator for the Transient Optical Robotic Observatory of the South (TOROS) collaboration in northwestern Argentina.

Research Interests

    • Cosmic Distance Scale
    • Data-Intensive Computation

Awards & Honors

  • Distinguished Achievement in Teaching - College Level (2014)
  • Mitchell-Heep-Munnerlyn Endowed Career Enhancement Professorship in Physics or Astronomy (2010)

Selected Publications

  • Tarini Konchady, Ryan J. Oelkers, David O. Jones, Wenlong Yuan, Lucas M. Macri, Erik R. Peterson, and Adam G. Riess. “H-band Light Curves of Milky Way Cepheids via Difference Imaging.” The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series, 258(2), 24, Jan 2022.
  • Martino Romaniello, Adam Riess, Sara Mancino, Richard I. Anderson, Wolfram Freudling, Rolf-Peter Kudritzki, Lucas Macrì, Alessio Mucciarelli, and Wenlong Yuan. “The iron and oxygen content of LMC Classical Cepheids and its implications for the extragalactic distance scale and Hubble constant.” Astronomy & Astrophysics, 658, A29, Jan 2022.
  • Siyang Li, Adam G. Riess, Michael P. Busch, Stefano Casertano, Lucas M. Macri, and Wenlong Yuan. “A Sub-2% Distance to M31 from Photometrically Homogeneous Near-infrared Cepheid Period--Luminosity Relations Measured with the Hubble Space Telescope.” The Astrophysical Journal, 920(2), 84, Oct 2021.
  • W. Yuan, L. M. Macri, B. M. Peterson, A. G. Riess, M. M. Fausnaugh, S. L. Hoffmann, G. S. Anand, M. C. Bentz, E. Dalla Bontà, R. I. Davies, G. De Rosa, L. Ferrarese, C. J. Grier, E. K. S. Hicks, C. A. Onken, R. W. Pogge, T. Storchi-Bergmann, and M. Vestergaard. “The Cepheid Distance to the Narrow-line Seyfert 1 Galaxy NGC 4051.” The Astrophysical Journal, 913(1), 3, May 2021.
  • K. M. Stringer, et al. “Identifying RR Lyrae Variable Stars in Six Years of the Dark Energy Survey.” The Astrophysical Journal, 911(2), 109, Apr 2021.