Joseph Jensen, Ph.D
Professor Utah Valley University
Biography
Areas of Expertise
Accomplishments
ARCS Foundation Scholar Achievement Rewards for College Scientists (ARCS)
Award for excellence in graduate studies and research.
Faculty Excellence Award
Utah Valley University - April, 2013
Dean's Award for Teaching
Utah Valley University - April, 2018
Education
University of Hawaii
Ph.D.
Astronomy
1997
University of Hawaii
M.S.
Astronomy
1995
California Institute of Technology
B.S.
Astronomy
1992
Affiliations
- Astronomical Society of the Pacific
- American Astronomical Society
Media Appearances
A study with ties to Utah Valley University is helping fuel a controversy over the age of the universe
KSL Newsradio online
2025-07-30
“Maybe 20 years ago, we discovered that the universe was accelerating, that the expansion of the universe was getting faster with time,” Jensen said. “And as that expansion accelerates, it implies something about both the age of the universe and also what the universe is made of."
UVU-led team finds evidence challenging universe expansion rate models
Utah News Dispatch online
2025-07-22
According to a study led by UVU astrophysicist Joseph Jensen in collaboration with other astronomers from Arizona, Maryland, Hawaii and Italy, the universe is expanding faster than current theories predict.
UVU Professor, UVU Student, and Renowned Astrophysicists Add Fuel To the Hubble Tension
UVU News online
2025-07-21
“This is a major step forward,” said Jensen, professor of physics at UVU and a leading author of the study. “By using a completely independent method with the power of [the James Webb Space Telescope], we’ve confirmed that the universe is expanding faster than our best theories say it should."
Cosmic conflict continues: new data fuel the Hubble tension debate
Physics World online
2025-06-23
“The paper’s been getting a lot of attention in our field,” Joe Jensen of Utah Valley University tells Physics World. “You can easily see that the vast majority of measurements fall around 73 km/s/Mpc, with varying uncertainties.”
Courses
Undergraduate Research in Physics
PHYS 4890R
Modern Physics II
PHYS 3120
Elementary Astronomy
ASTR 1040
Articles
The Local Distance Network: A community consensus report on the measurement of the Hubble constant at ∼1% precision
Astronomy & Astrophysics2026-04-10
Using covariance weighting and leveraging community expertise, we have constructed a rigorous and transparent “Distance Network” to find a consensus value and uncertainty for the locally measured Hubble constant.
Extending Precision Cosmology to Early Hosts of Type Ia Supernovae: An Independent Distance Ladder via Surface Brightness Fluctuation Distances
American Astronomical Society Meeting Abstracts2026-02-01
Here, we present our cosmology results using our updated zero-point and increased sample size and compare to previous Cepheid, SBF, and TRGB results.
FAST-SBF: An automatic procedure for the measurement of surface brightness fluctuations for large sky surveys
Astronomy & Astrophysics2025-12-05
We present FAST-SBF, a new Python-based pipeline for measuring SBF, developed to support the analysis of large datasets from upcoming wide-field imaging surveys such as LSST, Euclid, and Roman. The procedure, still in the testing and development stage, is designed for automation and minimal user intervention, offering a fast and flexible approach to SBF distance estimation.
The infrared jet of M87 observed with JWST
Astronomy & Astrophysics2025-09-22
We present the first JWST+NIRCam images of the giant elliptical active galaxy M87 and its jet at 0.90, 1.50, 2.77, and 3.56 μm. We analysed the large-scale jet structure, identifying prominent components, and we determined the near-infrared spectral index.
Envisioning the Distance Ladder in the Era of the Habitable Worlds Observatory
arXiv2025-07-02
The current state-of-the-art cosmic distance ladder requires three rungs--geometric distances, primary indicators, and Type Ia Supernovae--to achieve a 1% measurement of the Hubble constant . The Habitable Worlds Observatory will have the sensitivity and resolution to reduce this to a two-step measurement, eliminating the third rung entirely and reaching into the Hubble flow with stellar distance indicators such as Cepheid variables and the tip of the red giant branch alone.
The TRGB−SBF Project. III. Refining the HST Surface Brightness Fluctuation Distance Scale Calibration with JWST
The Astrophysical Journal2025-07-01
The purpose of this project is to measure the local expansion rate of the Universe independently of the methods that are most at odds with the theoretically predicted value of the Hubble–Lemaître constant H0, and therefore isolate the influence of potential systematic observational errors.
