Rachel Mandelbaum
Professor and Department Head
Astrophysics & Cosmology
Wean Hall 7327
Schedule a meeting with Rachel: Meeting scheduler
Education & Professional Experience
Ph.D.: Princeton University (2006)
Honors and Awards:
Fellow of the American Physical Society (2024)
Simons Investigator in Astrophysics (2019)
Falco-DeBenedetti Career Development Professor (2013)
Alfred P. Sloan Fellow (2013)
DOE Early Career Award (2012)
AAS Annie Jump Cannon Prize (2011)
Hubble Fellow (2006)
Kusaka Memorial Prize, Princeton University (2000)
Department Head, Carnegie Mellon University, 2025–
Interim Department Head, Carnegie Mellon University, 2024-2025
Professor, Carnegie Mellon University, 2019–
Indefinite Tenure, Carnegie Mellon University, 2016
Associate Professor, Carnegie Mellon University, 2014–2019
Assistant Professor, Carnegie Mellon University, 2011–14
Visiting Associate Research Scholar, Princeton University, 2011–12
Post-doctoral Research: Princeton University, 2009–11
Post-doctoral Research: Institute for Advanced Study, 2006–09
Research Interests
My research interests are predominantly in the areas of observational astrophysics and cosmology. My major efforts at this time are the Rubin Observatory Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST), which began in June 2026, and the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, which launched in August 2026. In recent years I have dedicated significant effort towards collaboration leadership, the development of open source software for astronomical simulation and data analysis, and the development of novel analysis tools using machine learning. For example, I was previously the Analysis Coordinator (2015-2019) and then Spokesperson (2019-2021) of the LSST Dark Energy Science Collaboration, and am now co-PI of the LINCC Frameworks initiative, which is developing open-source analysis infrastructure for Rubin LSST and the Schmidt Observatory System.
Recent Publications
Berlfein, F., Mandelbaum, R., Xu, J., Zhang, T. (2026). Optimizing the Roman Space Telescope High-Latitude Wide Area Survey for mitigating chromatic PSF effects on shear measurement. Mon. Not. R. Astr. Soc., 549(4), stag1032 https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stag1032
Leistedt, B., et al. (2026). Uniform Rolling: An LSST Observing Cadence Offering Sufficient Survey Uniformity for Comprehensive Cosmological Analysis. The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series, 284(53) https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4365/ae6069
Zhang, T., et al. (2026). Cosmology and source redshift constraints from galaxy clustering and tomographic weak lensing with HSC Y3 and SDSS using the point-mass correction model. Physical Review D, Volume 113, Issue 10, id.103530 https://doi.org/10.1103/hskc-8792
OpenUniverse, et al. (2025). OpenUniverse2024: a shared, simulated view of the sky for the next generation of cosmological surveys. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 544, Issue 4, pp. 3799-3823 https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/staf1833
Li, X., Mandelbaum, R., The LSST Dark Energy Science Collaboration (2025). Analytical noise bias correction for precise weak lensing shear inference. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 536, Issue 4, pp.3663-3676 https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stae2764
Li, X., Mandelbaum, R., Jarvis, M., Li, Y., Park, A., and Zhang, T. (2024). A differentiable perturbation-based weak lensing shear estimator. Mon. Not. R. Astr. Soc., 527(4):10388–10396 https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stad3895
Li, X. et al. (2023). Hyper Suprime-Cam Year 3 results: Cosmology from cosmic shear two-point correlation functions. Phys. Rev. D, 108(12):123518 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.108.123518
Zhang, T. et al. (2023b). A general framework for removing point-spread function additive systematics in cosmological weak lensing analysis. Mon. Not. R. Astr. Soc., 525(2):2441–2471 https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stad1801
Rau, M. M. et al. (2023). Weak lensing tomographic redshift distribution inference for the Hyper Suprime-Cam Subaru Strategic Program three-year shape catalogue. Mon. Not. R. Astr. Soc., 524(4):5109–5131 https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stad1962
Samuroff, S., Mandelbaum, R., et al. (2023). The Dark Energy Survey Year 3 and eBOSS: constraining galaxy intrinsic alignments across luminosity and colour space. Mon. Not. R. Astr. Soc., 524(2):2195–2223 https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stad2013
Mandelbaum, R., Jarvis, M., Lupton, R. H., Bosch, J., Kannawadi, A., Murphy, M. D., Zhang, T., and LSST Dark Energy Science Collaboration (2023). PSFs of coadded images. The Open Journal of Astrophysics, 6:5 https://doi.org/10.21105/astro.2209.09253
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ORCID Researcher ID