Campus Directory

Pronouns he, him, his, his, himself

Division Physical & Biological Sciences Division

Department/College/Unit UC Observatories

Title Director

Affiliation Faculty

Other UCSC Campus Affiliation Astronomy & Astrophysics Department

Faculty Type Regular Faculty

Areas of Expertise Adaptive Optics
Astronomy
Diversity

Primary Office Location Interdisciplinary Sciences Building
375

Mail Stop UCO / Lick Observatory

Biography, Education and Training

Bruce Macintosh serves as the Director of University of California Observatories (UCO, the multi-campus research unit that operates and supports UC's key telescope facilities - Lick Observatory at Mt. Hamilton, the W.M. Keck Observatory, and the proposed Thirty Meter Telescope. UCO operates these facilities for research and education for UC faculty, staff, and students, and develops new instrumentation and capabilities for them. As UCO Director Dr. Macintosh supervises the observatories and UCO's instrumentaiton labs at UCSC and other campuses. 

Personally, Dr. Macintosh's research focusses on the study of extrasolar planets, in particular the study of such planets through direct imaging, and on using adaptive optics to shape the wavefronts of light for a variety of applications. Direct imaging of extrasolar planets involves blocking, suppressing, and subtracting the light of the bright parent star so that a planet hundreds of thousands of times fainter can be seen and studied in detail. Dr. Macintosh co-led the team that imaged the first extrasolar planets, and was the Principal Investigator of the Gemini Planet Imager an advanced adaptive optics planet-finder for the Gemini South telescope,. HHe has been very active in astrophysics science policy, including serving on the Steering Commitee of the 2020 Decadal Survey of Astronomy and Astrophysics. Dr. Macintosh believes strongly in making astronomy and physics more inclusive, diverse and supportive. 

Selected Presentations

KIPAC Public Lecture: Pictures of Distant Worlds

KIPAC Public Lecture: Atmosphere of extrasolar planets with the James Webb Space Telescope

Selected Publications

Ruffio, J.-B., Konopacky, Q. M., Barman, T., Macintosh, B., Hoch, K. K. W., De Rosa, R. J., Wang, J. J., Czekala, I., & Marois, C., Deep Exploration of the Planets HR 8799 b, c, and d with Moderate-resolution Spectroscopy,  2021, The Astronomical Journal, 162, 290.

Macintosh, B.; Graham, J. R.; Barman, T.; De Rosa, R. J.; Konopacky, Q.; Marley, M. S.; Marois, C.; Nielsen, E. L.; et al., “Discovery and spectroscopy of the young jovian planet 51 Eri b with the Gemini Planet Imager”, 2015 Science 350, 6256

Macintosh, B., Graham, J. R., Ingraham, P., Konopacky, Q., Marois, C., Perrin, M., Poyneer, L., et al., “First light of the Gemini Planet Imager”, 2014 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111, 12661

Marois, C., Macintosh, B., Barman, T., Zuckerman, B., Song, I., Patience, J., Lafreniere, D., and Doyon, R., “Direct imaging of multiple planets orbiting the star HR8799”, 2008 Science 322, 1347