Angela Speck | |
---|---|
![]() Angela Speck in 2014 | |
Born | Angela Karen Speck |
Alma mater | Queen Mary University of London University College London |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Astronomy Astrophysics Infrared Mineralogy Optical properties [1] |
Institutions | University of Missouri University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign University College London |
Thesis | The Mineralogy of Dust Around Evolved Stars (1998) |
Website | www |
Angela Karen Speck is a Professor of Astrophysics and the Chair of the Department of Physics & Astronomy at the University of Texas at San Antonio. [1] She works on infrared astronomy and the study of space dust. She is a popular science communicator, and was Co-Chair of the National Total Solar Eclipse Task Force.
Speck was born in Bradford, Yorkshire, where she was inspired to study physics by the Apollo space program and by watching Star Trek . [2] [3] She studied astrophysics at Queen Mary University of London. [4] [5] After completing her undergraduate degree, Speck worked as a research and development technician in Lancashire. [2] She was a graduate student at University College London, earning a PhD in astronomy at 1998 for research on the dust and molecules around evolved stars. [6]
After her PhD, Speck remained at University College London as a postdoctoral fellow. [7] In 1999 she moved to the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, where she worked in the astronomy department. [4] [8] She moved to the University of Missouri in 2002, where she started to build the astronomy program. [9] She developed courses in cosmochemistry for students from all departments. In her early years at the University of Missouri, Speck organised a public outreach program called Cosmic Conversations. [10] [11]
Speck joined the University of Missouri as a Visiting Assistant Professor in Fall 2002. She became a "regular" Assistant Professor in 2004 and an Adjunct Professor of Geology in 2007. She got tenure and promotion to Associate Propfessor in 2008 and was made Director and Professor of Astronomy in 2009. [12] [13] Speck only intended on the United States temporarily, but found that it was a good fit with her research. [14] Her research focuses on the study of infrared light especially as it relates to circumstellar dust. [4] Star dust is essential to the formation of planets and is involved in interstellar processes including molecular formation and gas heating. [15] Mass-loss from stars is driven by radiation pressure on dust grains. [15] She uses spectroscopy, imaging and modelling to study the chemical compositions of stars. [4] Speck mainly considers how dust formation changes during the evolution of low and intermediate mass stars. [16] She used the Spitzer Space Telescope to study space dust in the spiral galaxy Messier 74. [17] She found that space dust formation is effective in supernovae, using up 5% of their heavy elements. [17] She went on to study unidentified infrared emission.
As Speck was in Missouri, which was part of totality for the 2017 solar eclipse, and spent 3 years promoting the celestial event across North America. [18] Speck was described by PBS as the "scientist in the forefront of educating the public" about the solar eclipse, and was appointed co-chair of the National Total Solar Eclipse Task Force. [19] [20] [21] [22] [23] [24] [25] She worked with the NASA Heliophysics Science Division to share information about the eclipse. [4] Speck created a guide to watching the eclipse with Science Friday. [26]
Speck is responsible for mentoring University of Missouri students who are interested in studying astronomy. [15] She directs their Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching and Learning, which supports students in their preparation for careers. [15] In 2008 she was awarded a University of Missouri award for research, in 2013 the University of Missouri William T. Kemper Fellowship for Teaching Excellence. [27] Speck was named after Angela Davis, and has always been interested in inclusion and equity. [2] She was appointed to the University of Missouri Policy Committee on Diversity Enhancement. [9] She serves as a member of the American Astronomical Society Council. [15] She has presented at The Story Collider. [28] She has also served as Chair the User Committee of the National Optical Astronomy Observatory and the Kitt Peak National Observatory. [18]
Speck won the University of Missouri Service Award for her Diversity work in 2016. [29] She was named to the 2021 class of Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. [30]
Michel Gustave Édouard Mayor is a Swiss astrophysicist and professor emeritus at the University of Geneva's Department of Astronomy. He formally retired in 2007, but remains active as a researcher at the Observatory of Geneva. He is co-laureate of the 2019 Nobel Prize in Physics along with Jim Peebles and Didier Queloz, and the winner of the 2010 Viktor Ambartsumian International Prize and the 2015 Kyoto Prize.
BD+20°307 is a close binary star system approximately 300 light-years away in the constellation Aries. The system is surrounded by a dusty ring, and probably orbited by a 0.48M☉ white dwarf on a wide orbit.
The Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA), with its headquarters in Bengaluru,is an autonomous Research Institute wholly financed by the department of Science and Technology, Government of India. IIA conducts research primarily in the areas of astronomy, astrophysics and related fields.
Solar physics is the branch of astrophysics that specializes in the study of the Sun. It deals with detailed measurements that are possible only for our closest star. It intersects with many disciplines of pure physics, astrophysics, and computer science, including fluid dynamics, plasma physics including magnetohydrodynamics, seismology, particle physics, atomic physics, nuclear physics, stellar evolution, space physics, spectroscopy, radiative transfer, applied optics, signal processing, computer vision, computational physics, stellar physics and solar astronomy.
Jay Myron Pasachoff is an American astronomer. Pasachoff is Field Memorial Professor of Astronomy at Williams College and the author of textbooks and tradebooks in astronomy, physics, mathematics, and other sciences.
Dame Carole Jordan, is a British physicist, astrophysicist, astronomer and academic. From 1994 to 1996, she was President of the Royal Astronomical Society; she was the first woman to hold this appointment. She won the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 2005; she was only the third female recipient following Caroline Herschel in 1828 and Vera Rubin in 1996. She was head of the Rudolf Peierls Centre for Theoretical Physics at the University of Oxford from 2003 to 2004 and 2005 to 2008, and was one of the first female professors in Astronomy in Britain. She was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2006 for services to physics and astronomy.
Alyssa Ann Goodman is the Robert Wheeler Willson Professor of Applied Astronomy at Harvard University, co-Director for Science at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Research Associate of the Smithsonian Institution, and the founding director of the Harvard Initiative in Innovative Computing.
The Department of Physics at Durham University in Durham, England, is a physics and astronomy department involved in both undergraduate and postgraduate teaching and scientific research.
John Asher Johnson is an American astrophysicist and professor of astronomy at Harvard. He is the first tenured African-American physical science professor in the history of the university. Johnson is well known for discovering three of the first known planets smaller than the Earth outside of the solar system, including the first Mars-sized exoplanet.
Louise Harra is a Northern Irish physicist, born in Lurgan, County Armagh, Northern Ireland. She is the Director of the World Radiation Centre of the Physical Meteorological Observatory in Davos (PMOD/WRC) and affiliated professor at the Institute of Particle Physics and Astrophysics of ETH Zurich.
Meera Chandrasekhar, is a Curators’ Teaching of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Missouri, United States. She is the recipient of the 2014 Baylor University's Robert Foster Cherry Award for Great Teaching. Her research focuses on optical spectroscopy of semiconductors and superconductors under pressure. Meera has also developed several hands-on physics programs for students in grades 5-12, and summer institutes for K-12 teachers.
Joan T. Schmelz is the Associate Director for Science and Public Outreach at the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) for the Universities Space Research Association (USRA). Previously, Schmelz was the Deputy Director of Arecibo Observatory and the Director of USRA Operations at Arecibo from 2015 through 2018. Before joining USRA, Schmelz was an NSF Program Director in the Astronomical Sciences Division, where she oversaw the Astronomy & Astrophysics Postdoctoral Fellowship program, and a professor of physics at the University of Memphis from 1996 to 2017. Schmelz's research focus is heliophysics, specifically investigating the coronal heating problem as well as the properties and dynamics of the solar atmosphere. She uses spectroscopic and image data in the X-ray and ultraviolet wavelength ranges obtained from NASA satellites and rockets. She has published over 80 refereed scientific journal articles and authored three books.
Ellen Gould Zweibel is an American astrophysicist and plasma physicist.
The School of Music is an academic division of the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri. Its focus is the study of music, awarding baccalaureate, master's, and doctoral degrees as part of the College of Arts and Science. The institution's programs encompass composition, performance, conducting, music education, music history, musical theatre and musicology. Established in 1917 as the Department of Music, the school continues to play a prominent role in the cultural life of Missouri and is located in the Sinquefield Music Center, on the university's flagship campus in Downtown Columbia. The Fine Arts Building also houses classrooms, studios, and a recital hall. Its major performance venues are Jesse Hall, the Missouri Theatre, and Whitmore Recital Hall. The Missouri Tigers marching band, Marching Mizzou, performs at Faurot Field for Southeastern Conference football games. The school's ensembles have performed worldwide and can be heard weekly on the university's own KMUC 90.5 FM Classical, Mid-Missouri's classical music radio station. Alumni include singers Sheryl Crow and Neal Boyd, Canadian Brass founder Gene Watts, and jazz artist Mike Metheny.
Lindsay Erin Glesener is an assistant professor in the University of Minnesota Institute for Astrophysics. She is a National Science Foundation CAREER Award researcher and lead investigator on the FOXSI Sounding Rocket.
Angela Villela Olinto is an astroparticle physicist and professor at the University of Chicago as well as the dean of the Physical Sciences. Her work is focused on understanding the origin of high-energy cosmic rays, gamma rays, and neutrinos.
The University of Missouri School of Health Professions is a medical school in Columbia, Missouri, and one of the major academic divisions of the University of Missouri. It awards undergraduate and graduate degrees in health-related fields in addition to the University of Missouri School of Medicine and the Sinclair School of Nursing. It is Missouri's only public health program located on a health science campus. The school is divided into six departments and has a satellite pharmacy program at the University of Missouri–Kansas City School of Pharmacy. The school has seen significant enrollment growth since its creation in the year 2000.
Keivan Guadalupe Stassun, is an American physicist and astronomer in the field of exoplanets. He is a physics professor at Vanderbilt University and an adjunct professor at Fisk University, institutions at which he oversees and co-directs the Fisk-Vanderbilt Masters-to-Ph.D Bridge Program. Stassun has been an activist promoting the integration of underrepresented groups in the fields of STEM, especially math and science through research, outreach and teaching.
Ruth Wyckliffe Stokes was an American mathematician, cryptologist, and astronomer. She earned the first doctorate in mathematics from Duke University, made pioneering contributions to the theory of linear programming, and founded the Pi Mu Epsilon journal.
Laurie Elizabeth McNeil is an American condensed matter physicist and materials scientist whose research topics have included optical spectroscopy, the properties of crystals and semiconductors, and the synthesis of carbon nanotubes. She is Bernard Gray Distinguished Professor of Physics and Astronomy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.