Eileen Friel

Last updated

Eileen Dolores Friel is an American astronomer specializing in the metallicity of star clusters. She is a former director of the Maria Mitchell Observatory and Lowell Observatory, and a professor emeritus of astronomy at Indiana University.

Contents

Education and career

Friel was a physics major at the College of William & Mary. After going to the University of Cambridge for Part III of the Mathematical Tripos, she returned to the US for doctoral study in astronomy and astrophysics at the University of California, Santa Cruz. [1] Her dissertation, A study of the stellar populations in two high galactic latitude fields with comparison to galaxy models, was completed in 1986 under the supervision of Robert Kraft. [2]

After postdoctoral research positions at the Paris Observatory, NRC Herzberg Astronomy and Astrophysics Research Centre, and University of Hawaii, she served as director of the Maria Mitchell Observatory for five years. [1] She moved to the National Science Foundation as a program director in the Division of Astronomical Sciences, [3] and served there as deputy director of the division for many years. [1] In 2009 she was named director of the Lowell Observatory; [3] however, she stepped down a year later, [4] and moved to Indiana University in 2011. [1]

Recognition

Friel was named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2009, "for distinguished service to the astronomical community as Executive Officer of the Astronomical Section at the National Science Foundation (NSF), and for diligently mentoring many young scientists in the Research Experiences for Undergraduates program". [5] In 2020, Indiana University gave her their Bicentennial Medal. [1]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">American Astronomical Society</span> Society of professional astronomers based in Washington, DC

The American Astronomical Society is an American society of professional astronomers and other interested individuals, headquartered in Washington, DC. The primary objective of the AAS is to promote the advancement of astronomy and closely related branches of science, while the secondary purpose includes enhancing astronomy education and providing a political voice for its members through lobbying and grassroots activities. Its current mission is to enhance and share humanity's scientific understanding of the universe as a diverse and inclusive astronomical community.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Margaret Burbidge</span> British-born American astrophysicist

Eleanor Margaret Burbidge, FRS (née Peachey; 12 August 1919 – 5 April 2020) was a British-American observational astronomer and astrophysicist. In the 1950s, she was one of the founders of stellar nucleosynthesis and was first author of the influential B2FH paper. During the 1960s and 1970s she worked on galaxy rotation curves and quasars, discovering the most distant astronomical object then known. In the 1980s and 1990s she helped develop and utilise the Faint Object Spectrograph on the Hubble Space Telescope. Burbidge was also well known for her work opposing discrimination against women in astronomy.

Vesto Melvin Slipher was an American astronomer who performed the first measurements of radial velocities for galaxies. He was the first to discover that distant galaxies are redshifted, thus providing the first empirical basis for the expansion of the universe. He was also the first to relate these redshifts to velocity.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael S. Turner</span> American theoretical cosmologist

Michael S. Turner is an American theoretical cosmologist who coined the term dark energy in 1998. He is the Rauner Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of Physics at the University of Chicago, having previously served as the Bruce V. & Diana M. Rauner Distinguished Service Professor, and as the assistant director for Mathematical and Physical Sciences for the US National Science Foundation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Maria Mitchell Observatory</span>

The Maria Mitchell Observatory in Nantucket, Massachusetts, USA, was founded in 1908 and named in honor of Maria Mitchell, the first American woman astronomer. It is a major component of the Maria Mitchell Association. The Observatory actually consists of two observatories - the main Maria Mitchell Observatory near downtown Nantucket and the Loines Observatory about a kilometer west of town. It is also the repository for a valuable collection of over 8000 wide-field glass photographic plates, recording observations of large swaths of sky from 1913 to 1995.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Frederick Slocum</span> American astronomer

Frederick Slocum was an American astronomer. He was the director of Van Vleck Observatory.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Margaret Geller</span> American astronomer

Margaret J. Geller is an American astrophysicist at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian. Her work has included pioneering maps of the nearby universe, studies of the relationship between galaxies and their environment, and the development and application of methods for measuring the distribution of matter in the universe.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Claire Ellen Max</span>

Claire Ellen Max is a Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC) and is affiliated with the Lick Observatory. She was the Director of the Center for Adaptive Optics at UCSC, 2007-2014. Max received the E.O. Lawrence Award in Physics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nicholas B. Suntzeff</span> American astronomer and cosmologist

Nicholas B. Suntzeff is an American astronomer and cosmologist. He is a university distinguished professor and holds the Mitchell/Heep/Munnerlyn Chair of Observational Astronomy in the Department of Physics & Astronomy at Texas A&M University where he is director of the Astronomy Program. He is an observational astronomer specializing in cosmology, supernovae, stellar populations, and astronomical instrumentation. With Brian Schmidt he founded the High-z Supernova Search Team, which was honored with the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2011 to Schmidt and Adam Riess.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Martha P. Haynes</span> American astronomer

Martha Patricia Haynes is an American astronomer who specializes in radio astronomy and extragalactic astronomy. She is the distinguished professor of arts and sciences in astronomy at Cornell University. She has been on a number of high-level committees within the US and International Astronomical Community, including advisory committee for the Division of Engineering and Physical Sciences of the National Academies (2003–2008) and Astronomy and Astrophysics Decadal Review. She was a vice-president of the executive committee of the International Astronomical Union from 2006–2012, and was on the board of trustees of Associated Universities Inc from 1994 until 2016, serving two terms as board chair and one year as interim president.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wendy Freedman</span> Canadian-American astronomer

Wendy Laurel Freedman is a Canadian-American astronomer, best known for her measurement of the Hubble constant, and as director of the Carnegie Observatories in Pasadena, California, and Las Campanas, Chile. She is now the John & Marion Sullivan University Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of Chicago. Her principal research interests are in observational cosmology, focusing on measuring both the current and past expansion rates of the universe, and on characterizing the nature of dark energy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Belinda Wilkes</span> English astrophysicist

Belinda Jane Wilkes is a Senior Astrophysicist at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO) in Cambridge, Massachusetts, US, and former director of the Chandra X-ray Center.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Meg Urry</span> American astrophysicist

Claudia Megan Urry is an American astrophysicist, who has served as the President of the American Astronomical Society, as chair of the Department of Physics at Yale University, and as part of the Hubble Space Telescope faculty. She is currently the Israel Munson Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Yale University and Director of the Yale Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics. Urry is notable not only for her contributions to astronomy and astrophysics, including work on black holes and multiwavelength surveys, but also for her work addressing sexism and sex equality in astronomy, science, and academia more generally.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Debra Elmegreen</span> American astronomer (born 1952)

Debra Meloy Elmegreen is an American astronomer. She was the first woman to graduate from Princeton University with a degree in astrophysics, and she was the first female post-doctoral researcher at the Carnegie Observatories.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vicky Kalogera</span> Greek astrophysicist

Vassiliki Kalogera is a Greek astrophysicist. She is a professor at Northwestern University and the director of the Center for Interdisciplinary Exploration and Research in Astrophysics (CIERA). She is a leading member of the LIGO Collaboration that observed gravitational waves in 2015.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rita M. Sambruna</span> Italian astrophysicist

Rita M. Sambruna Commander OMRI (Hon) is an Italian-American astrophysicist and is the Deputy Director of the Astrophysics Science Division at National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) Goddard Space Flight Center. From September 2022 to May 2023, she was the Acting Deputy Director of the Science Exploration Directorate at Goddard. Rita held the Clare Boothe Luce Professorship in Physics and Astronomy at George Mason University in 2000-2005.

Kathleen DeGioia Eastwood is an American astronomer known for her research on the formation and evolution of massive stars, and for her work on undergraduate education in astronomy. She is a professor emerita of astronomy and planetary science at Northern Arizona University.

Elske van Panhuys Smith is a Dutch-American astronomer, academic administrator, and author of books on astronomy. She has also been outspoken about discrimination against women in academia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kathryn Flanagan</span> American astronomer

Kathryn A. Flanagan is a retired American astronomer, the former interim director of the Space Telescope Science Institute, the operations center for the Hubble Space Telescope and James Webb Space Telescope. Her research also included work in X-ray astronomy using the Chandra X-ray Observatory.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Benjamin F. Peery</span> American astrophysicist, astronomer and professor

Benjamin Franklin Peery Jr., was an American physicist, astronomer, and longtime professor at Indiana University and Howard University. He was the second African American person to receive a doctorate in astronomy.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 "Eileen Friel", University Honors & Awards, Indiana University, retrieved 2022-06-05
  2. "Eileen Dolores Friel", AstroGen, American Astronomical Society, retrieved 2022-06-05
  3. 1 2 "Eileen Friel named new Lowell Observatory Director", Physics Today, May 2009, doi:10.1063/pt.4.1473
  4. "Lowell Observatory director resigns", Arizona Daily Sun, June 11, 2010
  5. Historic fellows, American Association for the Advancement of Science, retrieved 2022-06-05; Eileen Friel, Lowell Observatory director, named AAAS Fellow, Lowell Observatory, December 18, 2009 via EurekAlert