David Nataf joined the Department of Physics and Astronomy in August as an assistant professor in the Astronomy and Astrophysics research area. 

Nataf studies populations of stars to use them to understand better the history of our galaxy (The Milky Way) and the University as a whole. His research uses data from various ground-based observatories (based in Chile, Hawaii, etc.) and present and upcoming space-based observatories such as the Hubble, James Webb, and Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescopes.

Before coming to Iowa, Nataf was an associate research scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Department of Physics and Astronomy. He was a research fellow at The Australian National University and completed his PhD at The Ohio State University in 2012.