Profile
Christopher Karwin
Physics and Astronomy
Assistant Professor
Kinard Lab 104 [Office]
Educational Background
Ph.D., Physics, University of California, Irvine, 2019
M.S., Physics, University of California, Irvine, 2017
B.S., Physics, University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, 2013
Profile/About Me
Dr. Chris Karwin is an Assistant Professor at Clemson University in the Department of Physics and Astronomy. He joined the faculty as a recipient of the prestigious Scientific Software Research Faculty Award from the Simons Foundation. Before coming to Clemson, Dr. Karwin was a NASA Postdoctoral Program Fellow at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.
Research Interests
Dr. Karwin's research focuses on observational gamma-ray astronomy, with areas of interest including 1) diffuse emission from the Milky Way and other nearby galaxies, 2) searches for dark matter, 3) studies of faint source populations, and 4) development of future MeV missions, with a focus on software development for data analysis pipelines, and simulations of astrophysical sources and instrumental backgrounds. For this he works extensively with high performance computing clusters.
Selected Publications
Atmospheric Response for MeV Gamma Rays Observed with Balloon-Borne Detectors
Karwin, C. M., Kierans, C., Shih, A., Martinez-Castellanos, I., Lowell, A., Siegert, T., Roberts, J., Gallego, S., Zoglauer, A., Tomsick, J., and Boggs, S. E., The Astrophysical Journal 974.1 (2024): 146.
Legacy Analysis of Dark Matter Annihilation from the Milky Way Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxies with 14 Years of Fermi-LAT Data
McDaniel, A., Ajello, M., Karwin, C. M., Di Mauro, M., Drlica-Wagner, A., and Sánchez-Conde, M., Physical Review D 109.6 (2024): 063024.
Probing the Galactic Diffuse Continuum Emission with COSI
Karwin, C. M., Siegert, T., Beechert, J., Tomsick, J., Porter, T., Negro, M., Kierans, C., Ajello, M., Martinez-Castellanos, I., Shih, A., Zoglauer, A., and Boggs, S. E., The Astrophysical Journal 959.2 (2023): 90.
Gamma Rays from Fast Black-Hole Winds
Ajello, M., ..., Karwin, C. M., and 103 additional authors, The Astrophysical Journal 921 (2021): 144.
Dark Matter Interpretation of the Fermi-LAT Observations Toward the Outer Halo of M31
Karwin, C. M., Murgia, S., Moskalenko, I. V., Fillingham, S., Burns, A, and Fieg, M., Physical Review D 103.2 (2021): 023027.
Fermi-LAT Observations of Gamma-Ray Emission Towards the Outer Halo of M31
Karwin, C. M., Murgia, S., Campbell, S., and Moskalenko, I. V., The Astrophysical Journal 880.2 (2019): 95.
Dark Matter Interpretation of the Fermi-LAT Observations Toward the Galactic Center
Karwin, C. M., Murgia, S., Tait, T. M. P., Porter, T., and Tanedo, P., Physical Review D 95.10 (2017): 103005.
Selected Talks
COSPAR 2024
July 13-21, 2024
Busan, Korea
invited talk: Probing the Galactic Diffuse Continuum Emission with COSI
invited talk: Soft Gamma-Ray Polarimetry with the Compton Spectrometer and Imager
American Association for the Advancement of Science Annual Meeting
February 15-17, 2024
Denver, Colorado
invited talk: Three Ways Scientist are Searching for Dark Matter
invited guest on The Economist Podcast: How to detect the undetectable–new ideas in the hunt for dark matter
Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematic of the Universe
August 9, 2023
Kashiwa, Japan
invited talk: Anomalies in the Galactic Diffuse Gamma-Ray Continuum Spanning the MeV and GeV Bands
Wurzburg Dark Matter Workshop
May 11, 2023
Wurzburg, Germany
invited talk: Indirect Dark Matter Searches with Fermi-LAT
20th Divisional Meeting of the High Energy Astrophysics Division
March 26 - 30, 2023
Waikoloa, Hawaii
invited talk: Gamma rays from Fast Black-Hole Winds
Theory Meeting Experiments (TMEX-2023)
Jan 5 - 11, 2023
Quy Nhon, Vietnam
invited talk: The All-Sky Medium Energy Gamma-ray Observatory eXplorer (AMEGO-X) Mission Concept
Tenth International Fermi Symposium
Oct 9 - 15, 2022
Johannesburg, South Africa
invited talk: Indirect Dark Matter Searches with Fermi-LAT
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Fermi Speakeasy
July 14, 2022
Greenbelt, Maryland
invited talk: Probing the Galactic Diffuse Continuum Emission in the MeV Gap with the Compton Spectrometer and Imager (COSI)
Memberships
Member of the GALE team, Jan 2023 - present
Member of the COSI collaboration, Jan 2021 - present
Member of the AMEGO-X team, Jan 2020 - present
Member of the American Physical Society (APS), Mar 2019 - present
Member of the American Astronomical Society (AAS), Jan 2019 - present
Member of the Fermi-LAT collaboration, Jan 2016 - present
Honors and Awards
Scientific Software Research Faculty Award, Simons Foundation (Sep 2025– Aug 2030)
NASA Postdoctoral Program (NPP) Fellowship, NASA (Sept 2022 - Aug 2025)
