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

The Hubble Fellowship Program includes all research relevant to present and future missions relating to NASA's Cosmic Origins program. These missions currently include the Herschel Space Observatory, the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), the James Webb Space Telescope, the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), and the Spitzer Space Telescope.

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 2015 symposium was held at STScI on March 9-11.

"This year's group of Hubble Fellows is especially strong and there is no doubt that they will occupy prominent positions of international science leadership in the coming years," said Kathryn Flanagan, STScI interim director.

The new Hubble Fellows will begin their programs in the fall of 2015 and are listed below in alphabetical order with their Ph.D. and host institutions:

Katherine Alatalo; University of California, Berkeley; Carnegie Observatories

Peter Behroozi; Stanford University; University of California, Berkeley

Rongmon Bordoloi; ETH Zurich; Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Elodie Choquet; University of Paris Diderot; Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Lauren Ilsedore Cleeves; University of Michigan; Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory

J.J. Hermes; University of Texas, Austin; University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Yashar Hezaveh; McGill University; Stanford University

Tucker Jones; California Institute of Technology; University of Hawaii, Manoa

Erin Kara; University of Cambridge; University of Maryland, College Park

Khee-Gan Lee; Princeton University; Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Michael Line; California Institute of Technology; NASA Ames Research Center

Adrian Liu; Massachusetts Institute of Technology; University of California, Berkeley

Andrew Mann; University of Hawaii, Manoa; University of Texas, Austin

Erik Petigura; University of California, Berkeley; California Institute of Technology

Timothy Rodigas; University of Arizona; Carnegie Institute of Washington, DTM

Edward Ford Schlafly; Harvard University; Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Katherine Whitaker; Yale University; University of Massachusetts, Amherst

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 the Hubble Fellowship program, visit:http://hubblesite.org/news/2015/14 and

http://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/

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

For more information about NASA’s Cosmic Origins Program, visit:http://cor.gsfc.nasa.gov

STScI is the science operations center for the Hubble Space Telescope and the science and mission operations center for the James Webb Space Telescope, scheduled for launch in 2018. STScI is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, in Washington, D.C.