Christopher Reynolds is a Professor in the Department of Astronomy at the University of Maryland, College Park (UMD). He and his group conduct a broad program of research in theoretical and observational high-energy astrophysics with a focus on supermassive black holes. The observational aspects of this research center on X-ray studies of black holes and diffuse hot plasma using Chandra, XMM-Newton, NuSTAR and Swift. Theoretical work focus on the magnetohydrodynamics and plasma physics of black hole accretion flows and the hot diffuse plasmas in galaxies and galaxy clusters.
Reynolds currently serves as Director of the UMD/NASA-GSFC Joint Space Science Institute (JSI), and is Principal Investigator of the Advanced X-ray Imaging Satellite (AXIS). He has recently resumed his position at UMD following a stint as the Plumian Professor of Astronomy and Experimental Philosophy at the University of Cambridge (2017-2023) and Deputy Director of the Institute of Astronomy (2018-2022).