Newswise — A panel of 15 experienced researchers from the astronomy and astrophysics community was convened on January 19-20, 2012, 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. STScI administers the Hubble Fellowship Program for NASA. "This kind of program changes people's lives," said STScI Acting Deputy Director Kathy Flanagan. "The newly appointed Hubble Fellows represent the highest standard of excellence among new professionals in astronomy today. They are emerging leaders and will become astronomy's visionaries over the next two decades."
"The Hubble Fellowship Program supports some of the best and brightest young scientists, providing them with the means to devote themselves full-time to their research. Almost all of these young scientists will go on to positions in academia, sponsored research, and industry. Hubble Fellows can be found in increasing numbers among those who advise government on setting national priorities for research in astrophysics," 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 2012. "I was beyond excited when I heard that I was offered a Hubble Fellowship! Because it is so prestigious and competitive -- with hundreds of applicants -- post-doc seekers anxiously wait to hear the results each year, fervently hoping to obtain one," said Stella Offner, a new Hubble Fellow presently at the Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass. "For me, it means I will have the freedom to pursue my research ideas at Yale, where I will be able to work with fantastic collaborators. This fellowship will also help me prepare for my dream job: an astrophysics faculty position in which I'll perform independent research, teach, and mentor the next generation of scientists. Previous Hubble Fellows have made outstanding contributions to astronomy; I feel very honored to join this company."
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, as well as 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 will fund research opportunities for outstanding candidates selected in 2012 from among 278 applicants. The program is a joint venture between NASA and STScI, in cooperation with astronomical institutions across the United States.
The 2012 Hubble Fellows and their Ph.D. and host institutions are:
Xuening Bai, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey (2012), Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, Cambridge, Massachusetts Alis Deason, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom (2012), University of California, Santa Cruz, California
Jennifer Donley, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona (2009), Los Alamos National Lab, Los Alamos, New Mexico
Robert Feldmann, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland (2010), University of California, Berkely, California
Michele Fumagalli, University of California, Santa Cruz, California (2012), Observatories of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, Washington, D.C. Kaitlin Kratter, University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada (2010), University of Colorado, Denver, Colorado
Xin Liu, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey (2010), University of California, Los Angeles, California
Michael McDonald, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland (2011), Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts Matthew McQuinn, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts (2009), University of California, Berkeley, California
Kohta Murase, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan (2010), Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey
Stella Offner, University of California, Berkeley, California (2009), Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut
Steven Rodney, University of Hawaii, Manoa, Hawaii (2010), Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland
Leslie Rogers, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts (2012), California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California
Yue Shen, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey (2009), Observatories of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, Washington, D.C.
James Steiner, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts (2012), Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Erik Tollerud, University of California, Irvine, Irvine California (2012), Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut
Mark Vogelsberger, Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics, Garching, Germany, and Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich, Germany (2010), Harvard College Observatory, Cambridge, Massachusetts
For more information about the Hubble Fellowship program, please visit:http://hubblesite.org/news/2012/15http://www.stsci.edu/institute/sd/fellowships/hubble/
A complete list of Hubble Fellows since 1990 is available at:http://www.stsci.edu/institute/sd/fellowships/hubble/fellows-list
For more information about NASA's Astrophysics Division, please visit:http://science.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 in Greenbelt, Md., manages the telescope. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Md., conducts Hubble science operations. STScI is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., in Washington, D.C.
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