Dustin Swarm is a high-energy astrophysicist who studies the extreme conditions of the universe: hot gas, massive stars, explosive events, and extreme gravitational and magnetic fields. He also works in technology development for X-ray and gamma ray telescopes. Swarm is designing telescope mirrors that will focus light from positron annihilation in our galaxy. Because these events are incredibly energetic, conventional telescopes are unable to focus the light they produce. 

As a postdoctoral research scholar at the University of Iowa, he was named a Nancy Grace Roman Technology Fellow in 2024 and received a $1 million grant in NASA’s Astrophysics Research and Analysis program to create imaging technology that could generate a fuller photographic scope of the Milky Way galaxy. Swarm’s research will enable telescopes to explore what makes these positrons.

• Machine Learning
• Galactic X-ray Sources
• High Energy Astrophysics
• X-ray Optics in Astronomy