Dr. Larry Bradley
Astrophysicist and Principal Science Software Engineer at the Space Telescope Science Institute, exploring the dawn of the universe.
About Me
My work sits at the intersection of observational extragalactic astronomy and the scientific software that makes it possible. As an astrophysicist and principal science software engineer at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), I lead teams that build data analysis tools for the Hubble, James Webb, and Roman Space Telescopes while pursuing research into the formation and evolution of galaxies in the very early universe.
My research primarily uses the James Webb and Hubble Space Telescopes to discover and study high-redshift Lyman-break galaxies, including those gravitationally lensed by massive galaxy clusters.
I am an active member of several JWST science teams:
- JWST Cosmic Spring
- Vast Exploration for Nascent, Unexplored Sources (VENUS)
- Prime Extragalactic Areas for Reionization and Lensing Science (PEARLS)
- Bias-free Extragalactic Analysis for Cosmic Origins with NIRCam (BEACON)
I have also played leadership and science roles in foundational Hubble programs, including:
Featured Projects
VENUS
As the first large-scale JWST Treasury program of its kind, VENUS (Vast Exploration for Nascent, Unexplored Sources) will use 60 massive galaxy clusters to explore the early universe. This program will observe apparently bright but intrinsically faint distant objects using gravitational lensing to further explore the first galaxies, black holes, and their evolution.
JWST Cosmic Spring
Cosmic Spring is using JWST to study distant galaxies in the early universe magnified by gravitational lensing, revealing details at an unprecedented scale.
JWST PEARLS
The Prime Extragalactic Areas for Reionization and Lensing Science (PEARLS) is a JWST GTO program to study the epoch of galaxy assembly, AGN growth, and First Light.
RELICS
Using the power of gravitational lensing, the Reionization Lensing Cluster Survey (RELICS) was a Hubble Treasury program that observed 41 massive galaxy clusters to successfully identify some of the brightest high-redshift galaxy candidates known. Its rich dataset paved the way for crucial follow-up studies with JWST.
Frontier Fields
The Hubble Space Telescope Frontier Fields was a revolutionary deep-field observing program that used six massive galaxy clusters as natural telescopes. It provided a first glimpse of the universe that JWST is now exploring in unprecedented detail.
CLASH
As the first large Hubble program to pioneer the use of massive galaxy clusters as natural telescopes, the Cluster Lensing and Supernova survey with Hubble (CLASH) discovered and studied many lensed high-redshift galaxies while mapping the distribution of dark matter in 25 clusters. This foundational survey paved the way for subsequent lensing programs, including the Frontier Fields, RELICS, and the new VENUS JWST survey.
BoRG
The Brightest of Reionizing Galaxies Survey (BoRG) was a large Hubble Space Telescope Program that expanded our knowledge of the early universe by identifying rare and bright galaxy candidates at a time when it was less than 650 million years old.