Newswise — NASA and the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) have announced the selection of 17 new Hubble Fellows. STScI in Baltimore, Md., administers the Hubble Fellowship Program for NASA.

The Hubble Fellowship Program includes all research relevant to present and future missions in NASA's Cosmic Origins theme. These missions currently 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.

More than 345 of the most prominent and active scientists in this field have been supported at a crucial phase in their careers by this program, and the Hubble Fellowship Program continues to be one of the highlights of NASA's pursuit of excellence in space science.

Each year, the current Hubble Fellows convene for a three-day symposium to present the results of their recent research and to meet face-to-face with other Hubble Fellows and with the scientific and administrative staff who manage the program. The 2014 symposium was held at STScI on March 10-12.

"The Hubble Fellowship has become one of the most prestigious postdoctoral fellowships in the world. Many faculty search committees begin their work by browsing the current list of Hubble Fellows. These young researchers are emerging leaders and will become space science visionaries," said Matt Mountain, STScI director.

The new Hubble Fellows will begin their programs in the fall of 2014 and are listed below in alphabetical order with their Ph.D. and host institutions:

• Fabienne Bastien, Vanderbilt University (2014), Pennsylvania State University

• Matteo Brogi, Leiden University (2014), University of Colorado

• Michelle Collins, Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge (2011), Yale University

• Ryan Cooke, University of Cambridge (2011), University of California, Santa Cruz

• Jason Dexter, University of Washington (2011), Columbia University

• Cora Dvorkin, University of Chicago (2011), Harvard University

• Shy Genel, Ludwig Maximilians University, Munich (2011), Columbia University

• Laura Lopez, University of California, Santa Cruz (2011), Harvard University

• Joseph Neilsen, Harvard University (2011), Massachusetts Institute of Technology

• Evan O'Connor, California Institute of Technology (2012), North Carolina State University

• Georgiana Ogrean, University of Hamburg (2013), Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory

• James Owen, University of Cambridge (2011), Institute for Advanced Study

• Amy Reines, University of Virginia (2011), University of Michigan

• Benjamin Shappee, Ohio State University (2014), Carnegie Observatories

• Andrew Skemer, University of Arizona (2011), University of Arizona

• Sjoert Van Velzen, Radboud University of Nijmegen (2014), Space Telescope Science Institute

• Guangtun Zhu, New York University (2011), Johns Hopkins University

For more information about the Hubble Fellowship program, please visit:http://hubblesite.org/news/2014/20http://www.stsci.edu/institute/smo/fellowships/hubble/

A complete list of Hubble Fellows since 1990 is available at:http://www.stsci.edu/institute/smo/fellowships/hubble/fellows-list/

NASA has two other astrophysics theme-based fellowship programs: the Sagan Fellowship Program that supports research in exoplanet exploration; and the Einstein Fellowship Program that supports research into the physics of the cosmos.

For more information about NASA's Astrophysics Division, please visit:http://science.nasa.gov/astrophysics

For more information about the Hubble Space Telescope, please visit:http://www.nasa.gov/hubble

STScI is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc. (AURA) in Washington, D.C. STScI conducts science operations for the Hubble Space Telescope and is the science and mission operations center for the James Webb Space Telescope.