j. colin hill

jch2200 at columbia dot edu

affiliation:

associate professor, department of physics, columbia university

research interests:

My research is in physical cosmology. I analyze cosmological data to search for evidence of beyond-standard-model physics and to understand processes involved in structure formation. Much of my work focuses on the cosmic microwave background radiation. I am a member of the Atacama Cosmology Telescope, Simons Observatory, and CMB-S4 collaborations, as well as the Rubin Observatory LSST Dark Energy Science Collaboration.

I am grateful to the NSF, NASA, DOE, Sloan Foundation, and Simons Foundation for support.

CV
papers: arxiv inspire

current group members:

Stephen Chen (postdoc/Hubble Fellow)
Shu-Fan Chen (postdoc)

Samuel Goldstein (Ph.D. student)
Joshua Ange (Ph.D. student)

Jon Kwong (undergraduate)

former group members:

Shivam Pandey (postdoc --> Arizona faculty)
Oliver Philcox (postdoc/Simons Junior Fellow --> Stanford faculty)
Boris Bolliet (postdoc --> Cambridge faculty)

Alina Sabyr (Ph.D. --> UC-Berkeley postdoc)
Kristen Surrao (Ph.D. --> industry)
Aleksandra (Ola) Kusiak (Ph.D. --> Cambridge postdoc)

Luca Abu El-Haj (undergraduate --> Cambridge Ph.D.)
Michael Rodriguez (Bridge Program scholar --> industry)
Lucie Afko (Simons-NSBP intern --> Duke --> NIST)

research highlights, code, and data products:

GitHub
ACT DR6 MCMC chains (see Calabrese, Hill, et al. (2025) and Louis et al. (2025))
ACT DR6 Needlet ILC Compton-y and CMB maps (see Coulton, Madhavacheril, Duivenvoorden, Hill, et al. (2024))
pyilc (Needlet ILC in Python) (see McCarthy & Hill (2023))
NILC Compton-y maps from Planck PR4 NPIPE data (see McCarthy & Hill (2023))
ACT DR4 early dark energy MCMC chains (see Hill et al. (2021))
Modified CLASS Einstein-Boltzmann code for EDE calculations (see Hill, McDonough, Toomey, & Alexander (2020))
Compton-y maps from ACT (2014-15) + Planck (PR3) data on LAMBDA (see Madhavacheril, Hill, Naess, et al. (2020))
Simons Observatory component-separated noise power spectra (see SO Collaboration (2019))
CMB-S4 component-separated noise power spectra (see CMB-S4 Decadal Survey Report)
Multi-tracer CMB delensing maps from Planck and WISE data (see Yu, Hill, & Sherwin (2017))
Fisher code for CMB spectral distortion forecasting (see Abitbol, Chluba, Hill, & Johnson (2017))
Compton-y map from Planck Nominal Mission HFI data (see Hill & Spergel (2014))
tSZ power spectrum Fisher matrices (see Hill & Pajer (2013))
mangle software (see Swanson, Tegmark, Hamilton, & Hill (2008))

in the media:

ACT DR6 (cf. Calabrese, Hill, et al. (2025), Louis et al. (2025), Naess et al. (2025), and Beringue, Surrao, Hill, et al. (2025)):
Nature Astronomy
The Atlantic
Science News
New Scientist
Space.com
Phys.org
Columbia News
+ many more

Axions (cf. Goldstein, McCarthy, Mondino, Hill, Huang, & Johnson (2025)):
Astrobites

Dark photons (cf. McCarthy, Pirvu, Hill, Huang, Johnson, & Rogers (2024)):
Science

EDE + Lya (cf. Goldstein, Hill, Irsic, & Sherwin (2023)):
Quanta
Nature
Science
Physics

Advanced SO:
Columbia News
NSF News

EDE (cf. Hill et al. (2021)):
Nature
How Stuff Works

Kinematic SZ (cf. Hill, Ferraro, et al. (2016) and Ferraro, Hill, et al. (2016)):
Discover
Quanta

B-modes (cf. Flauger, Hill, and Spergel (2014)):
NY Times
Washington Post
The Guardian
Nature
Quanta
Daily Californian

elsewhere:

New Horizons Prize (April 2026)
Cool Worlds Podcast (August 2025)
Buchalter Prize (January 2023)
Sloan Fellowship (February 2022)
Public Talk at Nevis Laboratories (February 2023)
Aspen Center for Physics Colloquium (September 2021)
Public Talk at Aspen Center for Physics on the Hubble Conundrum (August 2020)
YouTube Cosmology Talk on Early Dark Energy and Cosmological Concordance (May 2020)
``Dust, Distortions, and Shadows in the Universe's Oldest Light'', cover article for Spring 2015 issue of Sigma Pi Sigma Radiations
interview on ``These Vibes Are Too Cosmic'', WPRB 103.3 FM, Princeton
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