In 1977 he entered the physics program at the University of Texas at Austin where he met and quickly decided to work with noted cosmologist Dennis W. Sciama.
[citation needed] His work in dark matter focused on the formation of what has come to be called the “cosmic web” from Zeldovich pancakes.
"[21] He showed that 27 and 62 million-year oscillations in fossil biodiversity cut across a variety of data sets and has found clues to their cause,[22][23] which, however, is still an unsolved problem.
He was elected Fellow of the American Physical Society[26] “For groundbreaking studies of the origin and evolution of cosmic structure” in 1996, and received its Joseph A. Burton Forum Award for his educational work in 2002.
[27] In 2007, he was elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science “For distinguished contributions to cosmological large-scale structure, for organizing public support for teaching evolution, and for interdisciplinary research on astrophysical impacts on the biosphere.”