Kevork N. Abazajian

Professor, Physics & Astronomy
School of Physical Sciences

Dark matter; sterile neutrinos; neutrino mass and cosmology; dark energy; cosmic microwave background; structure formation; galaxy formation; gamma-ray and X-ray astrophysics; indirect dark matter detection; particle astrophysics; precision cosmology

Research Web Page

Director, Center for Cosmology, University of California, Irvine

Founding Steering Committee member, Cal-Bridge Program; former Physics & Astronomy Co-Director; Strategic Planning Committee member and faculty mentor. Cal-Bridge received $5 million in State of California funding in 2022 to expand pathways for underrepresented students into physics and astronomy Ph.D. programs.

Local Organizing Committee, Neutrino 2026, University of California, Irvine

Working group lead supporting the Armenian Astronomical Society, Armenian Society of Fellows

Commissioner, City of Irvine Sustainability Commission

Director's Postdoctoral Fellow, Los Alamos National Laboratory, 2003–2006
Research Associate, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, 2001–2003 (member, University of Chicago Center for Cosmological Physics, now the Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics)

Prof. Abazajian works at the interface of particle physics and astrophysics, using the Universe as a laboratory to test fundamental physics. His research centers on the nature of dark matter — including sterile neutrino dark matter and searches for dark matter's particle signatures in gamma-ray and X-ray observations — along with the origin and cosmological consequences of neutrino mass, the formation of galaxies and cosmological structure, and precision measurements of the contents and expansion history of the Universe. Current work addresses the Galactic Center gamma-ray excess, gravitational lensing constraints on the small-scale structure of dark matter, and tensions in the standard cosmological model, including the Hubble tension and evidence from DESI for dynamical dark energy. He directs the UC Irvine Center for Cosmology, and his research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy, and NASA.

Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science, 2025
Fellow, American Physical Society, 2022
Founding Member, Armenian Society of Fellows, 2021
Faculty with Greatest Impact on an Outstanding Graduating Senior, UC Irvine, 2012 and 2021
Distinguished Assistant Professor Award for Research, Academic Senate, UC Irvine Division, 2013
National Science Foundation CAREER Award, 2011–2015

Kevork N. Abazajian is Professor of Physics & Astronomy and Director of the Center for Cosmology at the University of California, Irvine. He received his Ph.D. in physics from UC San Diego in 2001, and held research appointments at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory — where he was a member of the University of Chicago Center for Cosmological Physics, now the Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics — and at Los Alamos National Laboratory as a Director's Postdoctoral Fellow. He joined the faculty in the Department of Physics at the University of Maryland, College Park, where he received the National Science Foundation CAREER Award for research on cosmological structure formation and neutrino cosmology. He joined the faculty at UC Irvine in 2011, becoming Associate Professor in 2013 and Professor in 2017. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a founding member of the Armenian Society of Fellows.

Available through INSPIRE at http://is.gd/knapub

American Physical Society

American Astronomical Society

American Association for the Advancement of Science

Armenian Society of Fellows

Center for Cosmology

Link to this profile
https://faculty.uci.edu/profile/?facultyId=5856

Last updated
08/13/2026