Joseph Fowler (Fed)

Joseph Fowler is an experimental physicist in the Quantum Calorimeters Group at the NIST Boulder Laboratories. He joined NIST after a period designing optics and using arrays of superconducting microwave-frequency detectors to create the Atacama Cosmology Telescope. His research at NIST focuses on the use and development of superconducting x-ray and gamma-ray sensors with very high energy resolution. He specializes in data analysis and scientific computing, including the complex software required to operate arrays of high-speed sensors and the analytic tools required for extraction of accurate energy values from them. He works on many projects at NIST to make world-leading metrological measurements of x-ray emission and absorption processes; 3-dimensional x-ray computed tomography of objects at 100 nm spatial resolution; studies of x-ray emission from exotic atoms that contain anti-protons, muons, or other unstable particles; and many other measurements that use superconducting sensors at NIST, x-ray synchrotrons, particle beams, and radio-isotope analysis labs. He has written or co-authored over 200 publications in spectroscopy, observational cosmology, statistical analysis, and cosmic-ray measurements. He has contributed to work by NIST teammates that has won NIST Gold, Silver, and Bronze Medals.

Research Interests

• Metrology of fundamental x-ray parameters such as x-ray fluorescence emission.
• Measurement of x-ray emission from exotic atoms.
• Nanometer-scale x-ray computed tomography of microelectronics.
• Development of scientific computing software for high-precision analysis of data from superconducting microcalorimeters.
• New applications of precision x-ray spectroscopy.

• NIST Physical Measurement Laboratory Distinguished Associate (2015, 2017, and 2020)
• NIST ARRA Fellowship, 2010-2012
• Robert Dicke Postdoctoral Fellowship, Princeton University, 2000-2003
• NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, University of Chicago, 1993-1996