Dr. Mark Jeffrey Henriksen

Associate Professor · Tenured

Department of Physics

College of Natural and Mathematical Sciences

He/Him/His/Himself

About

I have been a professor at UMBC for 24 years. Before coming here, I was a professor at the University of North Dakota for 4 years. I completed 2 post-docs working on the the Hubble Space Telescope, and 3 years at the University of Alabama. I’ve been a visitor at the Institut d’ astrophysique in Paris and the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía in Granada, Spain.

Research interests

My research field is in high energy astrophysics; in particular X-ray astronomy. Most of my work is on the formation and evolution of structure in the Universe. I also study dark matter, magnetic fields, cosmic rays in clusters., and galaxy evolution using multi-waveband data. I have a scholarly interest in astrobiology.

Teaching interests

Physics and astrophysics

Education

  • Other, Music Performance — Catholic University of America (2001)
  • Ph D, Astrophysics — University of Maryland (1985)
    The Physical Characteristics of the X-ray Emitting Gas in Clusters of Galaxies and Constraints on Dark Matter
  • BS, Physics — University of California (1977)

Research in Progress

  • A Combined Chandra and NuStar Search for Inverse-Compton Emission in Merging Galaxy Clusters 2022 Scholarly · Writing Results Mark J Henriksen, Azzan Porter
  • Application of Network Theory to an N-body Simulation of galaxy evolution in Compact Groups 2022 Scholarly · Writing Results Mark J Henriksen, Mateo Mejia
  • Gaussian Mixture Modeling of the Abell 548 Galaxies 2022 Scholarly · Writing Results Mark J Henriksen, Prajwal Panda, Pascal Conroy
  • The X-ray Structure of the Abell 548 - Abell 3367 Supercluster 2022 Scholarly · Writing Results Mark J Henriksen, Layla Ahmed
  • A New Habitability Index 2022 Scholarly · Writing Results Mark J Henriksen, Natalie Piltoyan

Courses Taught

  • Methods of Theoretical Physics PHYS 605 · Fall 2025
  • Senior Research PHYS 499 · Fall 2025
  • Ideas In Astronomy PHYS 105 · Fall 2025
  • Modern Physics PHYS 324 · Spring 2025
  • Intermediate Mechanics PHYS 321 · Spring 2025
  • Directed Research PHYS 299 · Spring 2025
  • Stellar Astrophysics PHYS 405 · Fall 2019
  • Introductory Physics II PHYS 122H · Fall 2019
  • Ideas In Astronomy PHYS 105 · Fall 2019
  • Special Topics PHYS 450 · Spring 2019
  • Stellar Astrophysics PHYS 405 · Spring 2019
  • Modern Physics PHYS 324 · Spring 2019