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Michael E. Levi

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Michael Edward Levi is an American experimental physicist and senior scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), and a Senior Space Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley Space Sciences Laboratory. He has led the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) since the project's formation in 2012, initially as project director during construction and later as director of the operating experiment.[1]

Michael E. Levi
Born
Chicago, Illinois
Alma mater
Known forDirector, Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI)
BaBar detector construction
Baryon acoustic oscillations measurements
SpouseNatalie Roe
Children2
Relatives
Awards
Scientific career
FieldsParticle physics
Observational cosmology
Dark energy
InstitutionsLawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory
CERN
ThesisMeasurement of Electroweak Parameters in Leptonic Processes (1984)
Roy F. Schwitters
Websitedesi.lbl.gov

Levi has worked on a succession of major experiments in particle physics and observational cosmology, including Mark II at SLAC,[2] UA1 at CERN, the Superconducting Super Collider (SSC), and BaBar, before turning to dark energy experiments in the late 1990s.

Levi was elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 2000 and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2023.[3]

Education

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Levi received his PhD in physics from Harvard University in 1984 under the supervision of Roy F. Schwitters,[4] with a dissertation on experimental high-energy physics.[5]

Career

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Early career

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While an undergraduate, Levi worked on detector development at the Naval Research Laboratory under Herbert Friedman,[6] and on the DUMAND project under Larry Sulak.[7] For his doctoral work he joined the Mark II collaboration at SLAC, first while the detector was installed at SPEAR and then at the PEP ring, writing a thesis on weak neutral currents in e+e- interactions.[8]

Particle physics

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After completing his PhD, Levi was a scientific associate on the UA1 experiment at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland, working under Carlo Rubbia.[9] He later worked at SLAC under Burton Richter on the Mark II experiment at the SLC, where he built the energy spectrometers[10] used for the experiment's 1989 measurements of the Z boson resonance parameters, including a precise determination of the mass.[11]

In the 1990s, Levi worked first on the conceptual design for the Solenoidal Detector Collaboration (SDC) experiment at the SSC,[12] and later on the construction of the BaBar detector at SLAC's PEP-II B-factory, where he developed the charged-track trigger and drift chamber readout electronics.[13] BaBar reported the first observation of CP violation outside the kaon system in 2001.[14]

Instrumentation and transition to cosmology

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Beginning in the late 1990s, Levi contributed to the development of silicon detector technologies at LBNL,[15] including thick, fully depleted CCDs developed by Stephen Holland[16] and collaborators that were later widely adopted in astronomical instruments, including the Dark Energy Survey.[17] Following the 1998 discovery of the accelerating expansion of the universe,[18][19] Levi became involved in proposed space- and ground-based dark energy missions, including the SuperNova/Acceleration Probe (SNAP) concept co-led by Levi and Saul Perlmutter.[20] SNAP was eventually folded into the Joint Dark Energy Mission (JDEM), on which Levi served as project scientist for the DOE[21] and Neil Gehrels as lead project scientist for NASA. A variant concept, JDEM-Omega,[22] was presented to the 2010 astronomy and astrophysics decadal survey. After the decadal survey recommended a wide-field infrared survey telescope (WFIRST) and ground-based dark energy spectroscopy as priorities, Levi shifted his focus to ground-based spectroscopic surveys while also contributing to the near-infrared instrumentation for the European Euclid mission.[23]

Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI)

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Levi co-led (with David Schlegel) the development of the BigBOSS concept, a proposed multi-object spectrograph for dark energy studies.[24] In December 2012, Levi was appointed project director and tasked with merging the BigBOSS and DESpec[25] proposals into a single experiment, DESI. The combined design and scientific goals were set out in a 2013 white paper.[26] DESI was endorsed as a priority by the 2014 Particle Physics Project Prioritization Panel (P5) report Building for Discovery.[27] As project director, Levi oversaw the construction, commissioning, and operations of the instrument on the Mayall 4-meter Telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory.

Awards and honors

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Levi was elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 2000[citation needed] and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2023.[3] In 2020, the DESI construction project received the U.S. Department of Energy Secretary's Project Management Excellence Award for delivering the project on budget and schedule under Levi's direction.[28]

Public engagement

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Levi has been active with the Chabot Space and Science Center since 2012, when he was appointed chair of the Joint Powers Authority board that oversees the museum.[29]

Personal life

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Levi is married to physicist Natalie Roe, with whom he has two children.[citation needed] He is a son of Kate Sulzberger Levi[30] and Edward H. Levi, who served as president of the University of Chicago and U.S. Attorney General.[31] His brothers are David F. Levi, former chief U.S. district judge and former dean of Duke University School of Law,[32] and John G. Levi, an attorney at Sidley Austin and chairman of the board of the Legal Services Corporation.[33]

References

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  1. ↑ "The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI)". desi.lbl.gov. Retrieved May 22, 2026.
  2. ↑ Abrams, G.; et al. (August 1, 1989). "The Mark II detector for the SLC". Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment. 281 (1): 55–80. Bibcode:1989NIMPA.281...55A. doi:10.1016/0168-9002(89)91217-5.
  3. 1 2 "2023 AAAS Fellows | American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)". American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Archived from the original on April 29, 2026. Retrieved May 22, 2026.
  4. ↑ "Harvard PhD Theses in Physics: 1971-2000". Harvard University Department of Physics. Retrieved May 21, 2026.
  5. ↑ Levi, M. E. (January 1, 1984). Measurement of electroweak parameters in leptonic processes (Report). Harvard Univ., Cambridge, MA (USA). OSTI 5894897.
  6. ↑ Cruddace, R.G.; Fritz, G.; Levi, M.; Shulman, S. (1978). X-Ray Imaging Scintillation Detectors. New Instrumentation for Space Astronomy Symposium. p. 291. Bibcode:1978nisa.symp..291C. Retrieved May 21, 2026.
  7. ↑ Levi, M.; et al. (1978). "Experimental Studies of the Acoustic Signature of Proton Beams Traversing Fluid Media". IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science. 25 (1): 325–332. Bibcode:1978ITNS...25..325L. doi:10.1109/TNS.1978.4329325. ISSN 0018-9499.
  8. ↑ Levi, M. E.; Blocker, C. A.; Strait, J.; et al. (November 21, 1983). "Weak Neutral Currents in e + e ? Collisions at s = 29 GeV". Physical Review Letters. 51 (21): 1941–1944. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.51.1941. ISSN 0031-9007.
  9. ↑ Taubes, Gary (1986). Nobel dreams : power, deceit, and the ultimate experiment. Random House. pp. 234–238. ISBN 9780394545035.
  10. ↑ Levi, Michael; Nash, Jordan; Watson, Sterling (September 1, 1989). "Precision measurements of the SLC spectrometer magnets". Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment. 281 (2): 265–276. Bibcode:1989NIMPA.281..265L. doi:10.1016/0168-9002(89)91324-7.
  11. ↑ Abrams, G. S.; et al. (August 14, 1989). "Initial measurements of Z -boson resonance parameters in e + e ? annihilation". Physical Review Letters. 63 (7): 724–727. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.63.724. ISSN 0031-9007.
  12. ↑ Kadel, Richard (December 1, 1990). "Solenoidal Detector Collaboration Resource Requirements Report". inspirehep.net. Retrieved May 22, 2026.
  13. ↑ Aubert, B.; et al. (February 1, 2002). "The BABAR detector". Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment. 479 (1): 1–116. arXiv:hep-ex/0105044. Bibcode:2002NIMPA.479....1A. doi:10.1016/S0168-9002(01)02012-5.
  14. ↑ Aubert, B.; et al. (August 14, 2001). "Observation of CP Violation in the B 0 Meson System". Physical Review Letters. 87 (9) 091801. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.87.091801. ISSN 0031-9007. PMID 11531560.
  15. ↑ Oluseyi, Hakeem M.; Karcher, Armin; Kolbe, William F.; Turko, Bojan T.; Aldering, Greg; Bebek, Chris J.; Holland, Stephen E.; Levi, Michael E.; Roe, Natalie A.; Farid, Samiyah; Jackson, Marcus (November 4, 2004). "Characterization and deployment of large-format fully depleted back-illuminated p-channel CCDS for precision astronomy". In Meynart, Roland; Neeck, Steven P.; Shimoda, Haruhisa (eds.). Sensors, Systems, and Next-Generation Satellites VIII. Vol. 5570. p. 515. doi:10.1117/12.566976. {{cite book}}: |journal= ignored (help)
  16. ↑ Holland, S.E.; Groom, D.E.; Palaio, N.P.; Stover, R.J.; Wei, Mingzhi (January 31, 2003). "Fully depleted, back-illuminated charge-coupled devices fabricated on high-resistivity silicon". IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices. 50 (1): 225–238. Bibcode:2003ITED...50..225H. doi:10.1109/TED.2002.806476. ISSN 0018-9383. OSTI 838066.
  17. ↑ Preuss, Paul (September 17, 2012). "Berkeley Lab Sensors Enable First Light for the Dark Energy Camera - Berkeley Lab". Berkeley Lab News Center. Retrieved May 22, 2026.
  18. ↑ Perlmutter, S.; et al. (June 1, 1999). "Measurements of Ω and ? from 42 High?Redshift Supernovae". The Astrophysical Journal. 517 (2): 565–586. doi:10.1086/307221. ISSN 0004-637X.
  19. ↑ Riess, Adam G.; et al. (September 1, 1998). "Observational Evidence from Supernovae for an Accelerating Universe and a Cosmological Constant". The Astronomical Journal. 116 (3): 1009–1038. arXiv:astro-ph/9805201. Bibcode:1998AJ....116.1009R. doi:10.1086/300499.
  20. ↑ Aldering, G.; et al. (SNAP Collaboration) (May 12, 2004). "Supernova / Acceleration Probe: A Satellite Experiment to Study the Nature of the Dark Energy". arXiv:astro-ph/0405232.
  21. ↑ Preuss, Paul (December 15, 2008). "JDEM: A New Dawn for Dark Energy - Berkeley Lab". Berkeley Lab News Center. Retrieved May 22, 2026.
  22. ↑ Gehrels, Neil (2010), The Joint Dark Energy Mission (JDEM) Omega, arXiv:1008.4936
  23. ↑ Euclid Collaboration; et al. (April 30, 2025). "Euclid: III. The NISP Instrument". Astronomy & Astrophysics. 697: A3. arXiv:2405.13493. Bibcode:2025A&A...697A...3E. doi:10.1051/0004-6361/202450786. ISSN 0004-6361.
  24. ↑ Schlegel, D.; et al. (June 9, 2011). "The BigBOSS Experiment". arXiv:1106.1706 [astro-ph.IM].
  25. ↑ Abdalla, F.; et al. (September 11, 2012). "The Dark Energy Spectrometer (DESpec): A Multi-Fiber Spectroscopic Upgrade of the Dark Energy Camera and Survey for the Blanco Telescope". arXiv:1209.2451 [astro-ph.CO].
  26. ↑ Levi, Michael; et al. (August 4, 2013). "The DESI Experiment, a whitepaper for Snowmass 2013". arXiv:1308.0847 [astro-ph.CO].
  27. ↑ Ritz, Steve; et al. (May 30, 2014). Building for Discovery: Strategic Plan for U.S. Particle Physics in the Global Context (Report). U.S. Department of Energy. OSTI 2511004.
  28. ↑ "2020 Project Management Awards". Energy.gov. October 25, 2020. Retrieved May 21, 2026.
  29. ↑ Chabot Space & Science Center. "Chabot Space & Science Center Announces Election of Michael Levi as Chair of JPA Board of Directors". www.prnewswire.com (Press release). Retrieved May 21, 2026.
  30. ↑ "Kate Levi, Lab Schools graduate, widow of Edward Levi". The University of Chicago Chronicle. Vol. 22, no. 12. March 20, 2003. Retrieved May 21, 2026.
  31. ↑ Lewis, Neil A. (March 8, 2000). "Edward H. Levi, Attorney General Credited With Restoring Order After Watergate, Dies at 88". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved May 21, 2026.
  32. ↑ "David F. Levi | Duke University School of Law". law.duke.edu. Retrieved May 21, 2026.
  33. ↑ "Board Members | LSC - Legal Services Corporation: America's Partner for Equal Justice". www.lsc.gov. Retrieved May 21, 2026.
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