Dr. Michael J. Way

Affiliation: National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Adjunct Faculty: Hunter College City University of New York

Contact Information

Background:

Mike is a physical scientist at The NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City, and a sometimes visiting professor in the Department of Physics & Astronomy at Uppsala University in Sweden. He was awarded his Physics PhD in Observational Cosmology in 1998 from UM St.Louis, and has also worked in Machine Learning, the history of Astronomy , and in recent years the modeling of planetary atmospheres using a three dimensional general circulation model known as ROCKE-3D. His most recently published work attempts to reconstruct Venus' climate history over its 4.5 billion year lifespan. See this recent piece in Scientific American. Mike also enjoys road and gravel biking, reading history, MotoGP, and spending time with his family. For more details on Mike's varied career you can read about it here

Education:

+ Ph.D., Physics 1998, University of Missouri
+ Publications List

ROCKE-3D installation guides::

ROCKE-3D Tutorial Video May 2020
Compiler/Library Installation
ROCKE-3D Model Installation

Books published:

Origins of the Expanding Universe: 1912-1932, ASP Books.
Advances in Machine Learning and Data Mining for Astronomy, CRC Press.

Recent publications:

- Venusian habitable climate scenarios: Modeling Venus through time and applications to slowly rotating Venus-like exoplanets [2020] ( JGR-Planets )
- How Long Was Venus Habitable? [2020] ( EOS Feature )
- Was Venus the First Habitable World of our Solar System? [2016] ( GRL )
- Climates of warm Earth-like planets I [2019] ( ApJ Supplement Series )
- Structure in the 3D galaxy distribution. II. Voids and watersheds of local maxima and minima [2014] ( ApJ )
- Dismantling Hubble's Legacy? ( abs) arXiv:1301.7294, in Origins of the Expanding Universe 1912-1932
- Challenges for LSST scale data sets (pdf) arXiv:1108.5124, in Statistical Challenges in Modern Astronomy V
- Galaxy Zoo Morphology and Photometric Redshifts in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: ( ApJ ) [ blogged by astrodatamining.net ]
- Lemaître's Hubble relationship [2011] ( Physics Today vol 64, issue 8, Page 8
- Proceedings of the 2011 New York Workshop on Computer, Earth & Space Science (abs) arXiv:1104.1580v1

Recent Talks:

- The Future of Venus Exploration, on the Fraser Cain YouTube channel. [Feb 2023]
- Earth's next supercontinent climate, IDL Lisbon invited talk [April 2021] ( YouTube ) [starts at 2:32 mark]
- Thing that go BOOM in the night, U Chicago mini-Zoom conference on Uninhabitability [May 2020] ( YouTube )
- Dismantling Hubble's Legacy? (pdf, YouTube)
- 100 Years of Cosmology: From Spiral Nebulae to the CMB: (pdf, YouTube)
- Big Mirrors, Bayesian Evangelists and the Public: (pdf and/or YouTube )
- Photometric Redshift estimation using Gaussian process regression: (pdf): ETH Zurich 2011/06
- Dark Energy in the Universe - finally a 2nd opinion!: (pdf ): GISS Lunch Seminar (2009/01/07)
- GalaxyZoo Morphology Classification using Machine Learning: (pdf): Uppsala Galaxy Group Seminar 2009/09

Recent Press:

- Unlucky LIPs may explain Venus’s hostile environment (The Economist 19 Oct 2022)
- NASA-Funded Study Extends Period When Mars Could Have Supported Life (NASA HQ)
- Model Suggests Toxic Transformation on Venus (Scientific American)
- How Long Was Venus Habitable? (EOS Magazine)

Activities:

Editorial Board member for the journal Entropy
Co-Host of Venus Science Today (Aug/Sep 2021)
SOC member for Origins of the Expanding Universe: 1912-1932, Sept 13-15, 2012 in Flagstaff, Arizona
- Post-conference Podcast by Diane Hope featuring yours truly
2012 Space Science Chair of The Conference on Intelligent Data Understanding , Oct 24-26, 2012 in Boulder, Colorado
SOC member for An Odyssey in the Galaxy Archipelago , June 6-9 2012, Stockholm archipelago
Co-organizer of The GISS Lunch Seminar Series .
Co-hosted CESS 2011 an Interdiscipinary Workshop at GISS February 2011
Co-hosted CESS 2009 an Interdiscipinary Workshop at GISS February 2009