BALTIMORE — A panel of experts from the astronomy and astrophysics research community was recently convened at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore to advise STScI Director Matt Mountain on the selection of 17 new candidates for the Hubble Fellowship Program. This is one of three prestigious postdoctoral fellowship programs funded by NASA; the others are the Sagan and the Einstein Fellowships. The institute administers the Hubble Fellowship Program for NASA.
“The recently selected Hubble Fellows represent the ‘best of the best,’ a new generation of early career astronomers who will be exploring our cosmic origins, building on the scientific legacy of the Spitzer, Herschel, and Hubble telescopes, and looking towards the SOFIA and James Webb observatories,” said Mountain. “The Hubble Fellowship Program supports some of the most prominent and active scientists in astronomy and astrophysics at a crucial point in their careers. These young Fellows will be among the leading scientists and educators of the next generation,” added Ronald Allen, Head of the Hubble Fellowship Program at STScI.
Each fellowship provides support to the awardees for three years. The fellows may pursue their research at any host university or research center of their choosing in the United States and will begin their programs in the fall of 2010.
“When I put the Hubble image called “Pillars of Creation” as the front page of my high school thesis, I could not have imagined that one day I would be offered the fantastic possibility to become a Hubble Fellow and to conduct my research at the Harvard College Observatory, one of the world’s most prestigious institutions,” said Debora Sijacki, one of the new Hubble Fellows from Cambridge University in England.
The 17 awardees of the Hubble Fellowship pursue research broadly related to NASA’s Cosmic Origins Program. The missions in this program examine the origins of galaxies, stars, and planetary systems, and the evolution of these structures with cosmic time, and presently include: the Herschel Space Observatory, the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), and the Spitzer Space Telescope.
Inaugurated in 1990, the Hubble Fellowship Program funds research opportunities for outstanding candidates selected in 2010 from more than 230 applicants. The program is a joint venture between NASA and STScI, in cooperation with astronomical institutions across the United States.
The 2010 Hubble Fellows are:
NAME PhD INSTITUTION HOST INSTITUTION
Joshua Carter MIT, 8/09 SAO
Caitlin Casey U Cambridge, 9/10 IfA/UHI
Michael Cooper UC Berkeley, 5/07 UC Irvine
Selma de Mink Utrecht U, 4/10 STScI
Trent Dupuy U Hawaii, 5/10 SAO
Daniel Fabrycky Princeton U, 8/07 UC Santa Cruz
Karoline Gilbert UC Santa Cruz, 6/08 U Washington
Henry Hsieh U Hawaii, 4/07 IfA/UHI
Ryan Keisler U Chicago, 8/10 U Chicago
Dusan Keres U Massachusetts, 5/07 UC Berkeley
Maryam Modjaz Harvard U, 6/07 Columbia U
Pascal Oesch ETH Zurich, 8/10 UC Santa Cruz
Ryan Quadri Yale U, 12/07 OCIW
Beth Reid Princeton U, 9/08 LBNL
Hilke Schlichting Caltech, 5/09 UCLA
Debora Sijacki MPIA and LMU, 9/07 Harvard College Obs
Matthew Walker U Michigan, 8/07 Harvard College
For more information about the Hubble Fellowship program, visit: http://hubblesite.org/news/2010/10, http://www.stsci.edu/institute/org/spd/hubble-fellowship/, http://www.stsci.edu/institute/org/spd/hubble-fellowship/fellows-list
For more information about NASA’s Astrophysics Division, visit: http://nasascience.nasa.gov/astrophysics
The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center manages the telescope. The Space Telescope Science Institute conducts Hubble science operations. The institute is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc. in Washington, D.C.
