David Pooley’s research focuses on extreme astrophysical situations — from dense stellar environments (globular clusters) to exploding stars (supernovae) to supermassive black holes (quasars) to ``ultra''-luminous X-ray sources whose nature is unclear — studied primarily with the most energetic forms of light (X-rays and gamma rays). He involves Trinity undergraduates in the analysis of data from NASA’s flagship missions (the Chandra X-ray Observatory, the Hubble Space Telescope, the James Webb Space Telescope) and the McDonald Observatory.
Pooley has co-authored over 100 peer-reviewed publications on a variety of topics in high-energy astrophysics. He recently co-authored an authoritative overview of Chandra science with Pat Slane, the Chandra mission director, and Akos Bogdan, another colleague at the Harvard & Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. That publication, "25 years of groundbreaking discoveries with Chandra,” was a cover article for Nature Astronomy. He was also a lead author on a 90-page chapter on "Microlensing of Strongly Lensed Quasars” which was part of the Strong Gravitational Lensing book that resulted from the International Space Science Institute workshop on Strong Gravitational Lensing held in Bern, Switzerland.
In addition to his scientific research, Dr. Pooley has taken on several prominent roles at the national level. He was a leader of the grassroots #SaveChandra organization, a global movement of more than 12,000 people that successfully lobbied Congress to avert budget cuts that would have prematurely ended the Chandra mission. He has also been on NASA’s Physics of the Cosmos program's Executive Committee since 2021, serving as Vice Chair in 2024, Chair in 2025, and currently as Chair Emeritus in 2026. He was also on the Chandra User’s Committee from 2021 to 2026, and served as Chair from 2024 to 2026.