Meet the Faculty

Meet the faculty and staff who operate the observatory, offering Astronomy/Physics courses, and public events.

Steven Murrell

Instructor of Physics and Astronomy, Physics Department, HFC; M.S. Eastern Michigan University

Research Interests: Physics and Astronomy Education.

Lucas Stahl

I graduated from UM-Dearborn in 2016 with a major in physics and a minor in astronomy. I’ve been working and/or volunteering at the observatory since 2015.

Carrie Swift

I am graduate of the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor (B.S. and PhD-Astrophysics), and Oakland University (MS-Physics), and have been teaching at UM-Dearborn since 2002. I am the person to contact if you have questions about having an outreach event at the Observatory. 

Don Bord

I am recently retired from UM-Dearborn after more than thirty years of teaching physics and astronomy at both introductory and advanced levels.  I received my BA in physics from Hamilton College, an MS in physics from Clarkson University, and my Ph.D. in astrophysics from Dartmouth College.  I served as the project manager during the construction of the observatory and the installation of our 0.4-m telescope.

Will Clarkson

I am an observational astronomer with interests in Galactic archeology and in compact stellar binaries, which I investigate with collaborators and my student research team at UM-Dearborn. I received my MPhys in physics from Oxford University and my PhD in astronomy from the University of Southampton, before taking postdoctoral positions at the Open University, the Space Telescope Science Institute, and UCLA. After three years at Indiana University, I joined UM-Dearborn in 2013.