David Helfand

David Helfand
CSICon 2016
NationalityAmerican
Alma materAmherst College
University of Massachusetts
Known forViews on tenure
Quest University
Scientific career
FieldsAstrophysics
InstitutionsColumbia University
Quest University
Doctoral advisorJoseph Taylor
Doctoral studentsElizabeth Blanton

David J. Helfand is a U.S. astronomer who served as president of Quest University Canada from 2008 to 2015. Prior to his presidency at Quest, he was a Visiting Tutor at Quest. He has also served as chair of the Department of Astronomy at Columbia University and co-director of the Columbia Astrophysics Laboratory.[1] He was also part of the university's Physics Department. His stated research interests include radio surveys, the origin and evolution of neutron stars and supernova remnants, and active galactic nuclei. Helfand has been instrumental in the creation of general education classes oriented around the sciences, developing a course, Frontiers of Science, that has subsequently become part of the Core Curriculum of Columbia College, the university's undergraduate liberal arts and sciences division. He holds a Bachelor of Arts from Amherst College and a Ph.D. from the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

  1. ^ "David J. Helfand". Columbia.edu. Columbia University. Retrieved 8 November 2014.