Rebecca Oppenheimer

Rebecca Oppenheimer is an American astrophysicist and one of three curators in the Department of Astrophysics at the American Museum of Natural History on Manhattan's Upper West Side. Oppenheimer is a comparative exoplanetary scientist. She investigates planets orbiting stars other than the Sun. Her optics laboratory is the birthplace of a number of new astronomical instruments designed to tackle the problem of directly seeing and taking spectra of nearby solar systems with the ultimate goal of finding life outside the solar system.[1][2]

Rebecca Oppenheimer
Born1972
New York
EducationHorace Mann School
Alma materColumbia University
California Institute of Technology
Known forAstrophysics
Cosmology
Activism
Scientific career
FieldsChemistry, materials science
InstitutionsUniversity of California, Berkeley
American Museum of Natural History

Early life and education

Oppenheimer attended the Horace Mann School in the Bronx. After graduating in 1990, she attended Columbia University, where she was an I. I. Rabi Science Scholar. She received a BSc in Physics from Columbia in 1994. In 1999 she was granted a Ph.D. in astrophysics from the California Institute of Technology and spent the following two years at the University of California at Berkeley on a Hubble Space Telescope Postdoctoral Research Fellowship.

Career

Oppenheimer holds an adjunct professorship at Columbia University's Department of Astronomy and has published over one hundred research and public-oriented science articles. She is co-discoverer of the first brown dwarf, Gliese 229B,[3][4] and is active in research on exoplanets,[5] white dwarfs,[6] adaptive optics and coronagraphy.[7] Oppenheimer serves on NASA,[8] NSF and NRC committees. She is the principal investigator for Project 1640, an exoplanet imaging project.

In 2001, she moved back to New York City to conduct research at the American Museum of Natural History, where she joined the faculty in 2004. Oppenheimer regularly gives public and professional lectures on astronomical research.

She is an active member of the International Astronomical Union. She is a member of the A,B,C,D,F, and G affiliations within the IAU.[9]

Awards and honors

Personal life

Oppenheimer is a trans woman[15] and was featured in a New York Times piece where she wrote about being transgender and a scientist.[16]

References
  1. "Rebecca Oppenheimer". the Guardian. Retrieved 2017-07-19.
  2. "Profile: Rebecca Oppenheimer | Astrophysics". research.amnh.org. Retrieved 2020-01-29.
  3. Nakajima, T.; et al. (1995-11-20). "Discovery of a cool brown dwarf". Nature. Nature Publishing Group. 378 (6556): 463–465. Bibcode:1995Natur.378..463N. doi:10.1038/378463a0. S2CID 4351772.
  4. Oppenheimer, B. R.; et al. (1995-12-01). "Infrared Spectrum of the Cool Brown Dwarf Gl 229B". Science. Science Magazine. 270 (5241): 1478–1479. Bibcode:1995Sci...270.1478O. doi:10.1126/science.270.5241.1478. PMID 7491492. S2CID 45078715.
  5. "The Lyot Project Website". January 2004.
  6. "White Dwarfs by the Billions". May 2001.
  7. Overbye, Dennis (2004-06-22). "Grasping for Light of Distant Worlds". New York Times.
  8. "Terrestrial Planet Finder Science and Technology Definition Team". March 2005.
  9. "International Astronomical Union | IAU". www.iau.org. Retrieved 2020-01-30.
  10. "The Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists | The New York Academy of Sciences". nyas. Retrieved 2017-07-19.
  11. "Listing of all Hubble Fellows 1990-2017". www.stsci.edu. Retrieved 2017-07-19.
  12. "Hubble Fellowships". www.stsci.edu. Retrieved 2017-07-19.
  13. "Home - NSF Graduate Research Fellowships Program (GRFP)". www.nsfgrfp.org. Retrieved 2017-07-19.
  14. "I.I. Rabi Scholars Program | Columbia College". www.college.columbia.edu. Retrieved 2017-07-19.
  15. Schmelz, Joan (2015-04-27). "Women In Astronomy: The Limits of Labels, Categories, and Classifications". Women In Astronomy. Retrieved 2020-01-30.
  16. "Opinion | Transgender Lives: Your Stories: Rebecca Oppenheimer". The New York Times. 2018-09-13. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2020-01-30.
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