Elliott Horch

Elliott Horch is an astronomer and instrument builder whose research interests include stellar astrophysics, binary stars, exoplanets, and high-resolution imaging. A graduate of the College of the University of Chicago (BA with Honors 1987), he obtained his Ph.D. in Applied Physics from Stanford University in 1994. After postdoctoral stints at Yale and Rochester Institute of Technology, he held faculty appointments at Rochester Institute of Technology (1999-2002) and at UMass Dartmouth (2002-2007). He came to Southern Connecticut State University in 2007 and is currently CSU Professor of Physics. During his career, Prof. Horch has used his instruments on some of the world's largest telescopes and has been the recipient of time on the Hubble Space Telescope on multiple occasions. He was awarded the Connecticut State University System Research Prize in 2011 and was named SCSU Faculty Scholar of the Year in 2012. In 2016, he was the recipient of SCSU's first Senior Research Fellowship. An image that he and his collaborators obtained in 2012 of the Pluto-Charon system remains the highest resolution ground-based image ever obtained of this dwarf planet and its largest moon. Prof. Horch is currently the principal investigator on two active NSF grants, which provide significant support for student research projects in astronomy at SCSU.