Dr Michelle Thaller | |
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Born | Waukesha, Wisconsin, U.S. |
Education | BS 1992, PhD 1998 |
Alma mater | |
Spouse | Andrew Booth (2000–2020) [1] [2] |
Michelle Thaller is an American astronomer, research scientist, and science communicator. Thaller is formerly the Assistant Director for Science Communication at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. [3] She retired in 2024 after 27 years at NASA. [4]
From 1998 to 2009 she was a staff scientist at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center, and later Manager of the Education and Public Outreach program for the Spitzer Space Telescope, at the California Institute of Technology. [5] She is a frequent on-camera contributor to programming on The History Channel and Science Channel.
A native of Wisconsin, [6] Thaller graduated from Waukesha South High School in 1988. [7] She attended Harvard University, where she majored in astrophysics and worked on precision measurement of binary stars, receiving a bachelor's degree in 1992. At Georgia State University Thaller worked on colliding winds in close massive binary systems. She received a PhD in 1998. [5] [8]
Thaller is a regular contributor to the online edition of the Christian Science Monitor , for which she writes a monthly science column, [6] [8] and appears on the History Channel show, The Universe, and The Science Channel series How the Universe Works , Strip the Cosmos , and The Planets and Beyond. In 2016 and 2017 Thaller authored and hosted the PRX/Sky & Telescope Orbital Path Podcasts series, [9] and in 2008 contributed to and appeared in the NASA Spitzer Space Telescope's award-winning video podcast series IRrelevant Astronomy . [10]
Michelle Thaller married fellow astronomer Andrew Booth on September 8, 2000, in Scotland. [11] Andrew, a tenured professor at the University of Sydney, moved from Australia to be with Michelle in Pasadena, California during her post-doc. Andrew passed in 2020 due to a rare form of brain cancer. [12]