Professor Ragan is an experimental astro-particle physicist. He earned his PhD at the University of Geneva working on an accelerator-based experiment, but is currently working in ground-based gamma-ray astrophysics with the VERITAS Cherenkov telescope array at the Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory near Tucson, Az. VERITAS uses the techniques of experimental particle physics to study very-high-energy gamma rays from cosmological sources.
Professor Ragan has served the physics community in Canada on several panels, including chairing the NSERC sub-atomic physics Grant Selection Committee and the sub-atomic physics Long Range Planning Committee, and serving on the Presidential line of the Canadian Association of Physicists. He joined the SNOLAB Board of Directors in 2017, and became Chair in February 2018.