Rate My Professor Rachel Mandelbaum

Mandelbaum's research specializes in observational cosmology and galaxy studies, employing weak gravitational lensing and other data analysis techniques on datasets from surveys such as Hyper Suprime-Cam, Rubin Observatory Legacy Survey of Space and Time, Euclid, and Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. She served as Spokesperson for the LSST Dark Energy Science Collaboration from 2019 to 2021 and is Principal Investigator at Carnegie Mellon for the LINCC Frameworks Initiative, which develops open-source software for scalable astronomical data analysis. A lead developer of the GalSim image simulation package since 2012, her work has profoundly influenced the field. She was elected Fellow of the American Physical Society in 2024 for developing techniques impacting weak gravitational lensing, cosmological and galaxy formation discoveries via lensing, leadership in cosmic surveys, and mentorship. Other honors include Simons Investigator in Astrophysics (2019), Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship (2013), Department of Energy Early Career Award (2012), American Astronomical Society Annie Jump Cannon Prize (2011), and Hubble Fellowship (2006). With an h-index of 85 and over 42,000 citations per NASA ADS as of August 2025, Mandelbaum has shaped international collaborations through roles on the Particle Physics Project Prioritization Panel (2023), High Energy Physics Advisory Panel, LSST committees, and decadal surveys. She delivers frequent invited talks, including plenaries at major conferences.