Assistant Professor, LSA Collegiate Fellow, Rackham Faculty Ally
he/him/his
About
Sean Johnson is an observational astronomer and primarily studies galaxies, supermassive black holes, and the surrounding gas supplies that fuel their growth. By combining datasets from space-based and large ground-based telescopes, he studies the physical conditions of the gas supplies that enable galaxies to continue forming stars, and identifies the chemical signatures of heavy elements that are produced in supernova explosions and deposited into intergalactic space by galactic-scale winds and galaxy interactions. He is co-PI of the Cosmic Ultraviolet Baryon Survey (CUBS) and leading wide-field ground-based follow-up for the MUSE Quasar Blind Emitter Survey (MUSEQuBES) which are increasing samples for CGM studies at z<1 by more than an order-of-magnitude by combining high quality HST UV spectra, deep integral field observations with MUSE, and wider field galaxy surveys with Magellan. Before joining U. Michigan, Sean was a Hubble and Carnegie-Princeton Postdoctoral Fellow at Princeton University where he volunteered regularly with the Prison Teaching Initiative. Prior to that, he was a graduate student at The University of Chicago.
First author and second author, student led, papers highlighting current areas of research:
- Johnson, S. D.; et al.; in review (ApJ Letters); Directly tracing cool filamentary accretion over >100 kpc into the interstellar medium of a quasar host at z=1
- Dorigo Jones, J.; Johnson, S. D.; et al., 2022 (MNRAS); Improving blazar redshift constraints with the edge of the Ly α forest: 1ES 1553+113 and implications for observations of the WHIM
- Helton, J. M.; Johnson, S. D.; et al.; 2021 (MNRAS); Discovery and origins of giant optical nebulae surrounding quasar PKS 0454-22
- Somalwar, J.; Johnson, S.D.; et al.; 2020 (ApJ Letters); Spatially Resolved UV Diagnostics of AGN Feedback: Radiation Pressure Dominates in a Prototypical Quasar-driven Superwind
- Johnson, S. D.; et al.; 2019 (ApJ Letters); The Physical Origins of the Identified and Still Missing Components of the Warm-Hot Intergalactic Medium: Insights from Deep Surveys in the Field of Blazar 1ES1553+113
- Johnson, S. D.; et al., 2018 (ApJ Letters); Galaxy and Quasar Fueling Caught in the Act from the Intragroup to the Interstellar Medium
- Johnson, S. D.; et al., 2017 (ApJ Letters); The Extent of Chemically Enriched Gas around Star-forming Dwarf Galaxies
