April 7, 2015
UW astronomer named 2015 Sagan Fellow
A UW postdoctoral scientist is among six nationwide recipients of the 2015 Carl Sagan Exoplanet Postdoctoral Fellowships.
The Sagan Fellowships support recent postdoctoral students in research related to the scientific goals of NASA’s Exoplanet Exploration Program — specifically, to discover and characterize planetary systems and Earth-like planets around stars.
Daniel Foreman-Mackey , an incoming postdoctoral researcher in the UW Department of Astronomy, will focus on using statistical methods to research exoplanet discoveries, with the goal of developing a framework for population predictions that can be used in cataloging exoplanet data.
“The Sagan Fellowships attract the best and brightest early career researchers in the rapidly developing field of exoplanets. They are pushing the boundaries of finding and characterizing the most Earth-like around the coolest, nearest stars,” Charles Beichman, executive director of the NASA Exoplanet Science Institute at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, said in a release.
“Their research will make advances in exoplanet theory and instrumentation, and take full advantage of NASA missions.”
Named for the late astronomer, the fellowship program was created in 2008 to inspire the next generation of scientists seeking to learn about planets — and possibly life — around other stars. Previous fellows have made significant discoveries and advances, including developing the most precise measurement to date of the radius of a planet outside our solar system, and obtaining images of exoplanets with an Earth-based telescope using the same type of imaging sensor found in digital cameras.
Additional information about Foreman-Mackey, who tweets under the handle @exoplaneteer, and his work is available on the NASA Exoplanet Science Institute website. Tyler Robinson, who recently earned his UW doctorate in astronomy and is now at the University of California, Santa Cruz, is also among the 2015 fellows.
