Fiona A. Harrison

Last updated
Fiona A. Harrison
Fiona A. Harrison at World Economic Forum.jpg
Harrison speaks at the 2016 World Economic Forum
Born
NationalityAmerican
Education Dartmouth College
UC Berkeley
Awards
Scientific career
Fields Astrophysics
Website pma.divisions.caltech.edu/people/fiona-a-harrison www.astro.caltech.edu/people/faculty/Fiona_Harrison.html

Fiona A. Harrison is the Kent and Joyce Kresa Leadership Chair of the Division of Physics, Mathematics and Astronomy at Caltech, Harold A. Rosen Professor of Physics at Caltech and the Principal Investigator for NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) mission. She won the Hans A. Bethe Prize in 2020 for her work on NuSTAR. [1] [2]

Contents

Biography

Harrison was born in Santa Monica, California but moved to Boulder, Colorado, at age three. She completed her undergraduate degree from Dartmouth College in 1985 with high honors in physics, and went to U.C. Berkeley for graduate studies, completing a PhD in 1993. She then went to Caltech as a Millikan Fellow, joining the faculty as an Assistant Professor of Physics in 1995. She became a full professor in 2005 and was appointed as the Benjamin M. Rosen Professor of Physics in 2013.

Research

Harrison's research combines the development of new instrumentation with observational work focused on high energy observations of black holes, neutron stars, gamma-ray bursts and supernova remnants. As the Principal Investigator for NuSTAR, the first focusing telescope in orbit operating in the high energy part of the X-ray spectrum (3 – 79 keV), she led an international team to propose, develop and launch the mission. The focal plane detectors and instrument electronics were built in Harrison's labs at Caltech. She led the science team executing the two-year baseline mission, which extended from August 2012 – August 2014.

Harrison's observational research showed that the afterglows of gamma-ray bursts exhibit breaks in their decay rate due to collimation of the ejecta. [3] Scientific highlights from the NuSTAR mission include mapping the radioactive debris in the Cassieopeia A supernova remnant to constrain the core collapse explosion mechanism, [4] [5] measurement of the spin of supermassive [6] and stellar mass [7] black holes, the discovery of a magnetar in the Galactic Center, [8] and the discovery of an ultra luminous pulsar. [9] [10]

Awards and honors

Harrison was awarded the Presidential Early Career award by President Clinton in 2000, [11] was named one of America's best leaders by U.S. News and the Kennedy School of Government, was awarded a NASA Outstanding Public Leadership medal in 2013, [12] and the Bruno Rossi Prize of the American Astronomical Society in 2015. [13] She is a fellow of the American Physical Society, [14] the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, an honorary fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society, and honorary degree Doctor Technices Hornoris Causa from the Danish Technical University, and a member of the National Academy of Sciences.

She was elected a Legacy Fellow of the American Astronomical Society in 2020. [15]

She was awarded the Mohler Prize from the University of Michigan in 2022. [16]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gamma-ray burst</span> Flashes of gamma rays from distant galaxies

In gamma-ray astronomy, gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are immensely energetic explosions that have been observed in distant galaxies, described by NASA as "the most powerful class of explosions in the universe". They are the most energetic and luminous electromagnetic events since the Big Bang. Bursts can last from ten milliseconds to several hours. After an initial flash of gamma rays, a longer-lived "afterglow" is usually emitted at longer wavelengths.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Magnetar</span> Type of neutron star with a strong magnetic field

A magnetar is a type of neutron star with an extremely powerful magnetic field (~109 to 1011 T, ~1013 to 1015 G). The magnetic-field decay powers the emission of high-energy electromagnetic radiation, particularly X-rays and gamma rays.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Protoplanet</span> Large planetary embryo

A protoplanet is a large planetary embryo that originated within a protoplanetary disk and has undergone internal melting to produce a differentiated interior. Protoplanets are thought to form out of kilometer-sized planetesimals that gravitationally perturb each other's orbits and collide, gradually coalescing into the dominant planets.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Andrea M. Ghez</span> American astronomer (born 1965)

Andrea Mia Ghez is an American astrophysicist, Nobel laureate, and professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy and the Lauren B. Leichtman & Arthur E. Levine chair in Astrophysics, at the University of California, Los Angeles. Her research focuses on the center of the Milky Way galaxy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John N. Bahcall</span> American astrophysicist

John Norris Bahcall was an American astrophysicist and the Richard Black Professor for Astrophysics at the Institute for Advanced Study. He was known for a wide range of contributions to solar, galactic and extragalactic astrophysics, including the solar neutrino problem, the development of the Hubble Space Telescope and for his leadership and development of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sagittarius A*</span> Supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way

Sagittarius A*, abbreviated Sgr A*, is the supermassive black hole at the Galactic Center of the Milky Way. Viewed from Earth, it is located near the border of the constellations Sagittarius and Scorpius, about 5.6° south of the ecliptic, visually close to the Butterfly Cluster (M6) and Lambda Scorpii.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">NuSTAR</span> NASA X-ray space telescope of the Explorer program

NuSTAR is a NASA space-based X-ray telescope that uses a conical approximation to a Wolter telescope to focus high energy X-rays from astrophysical sources, especially for nuclear spectroscopy, and operates in the range of 3 to 79 keV.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shrinivas Kulkarni</span> American-Indian astronomer (born 1956)

Shrinivas Ramchandra Kulkarni is a US-based astronomer born and raised in India. He is currently a professor of astronomy and planetary science at California Institute of Technology, and he served as director of Caltech Optical Observatory (COO) at California Institute of Technology, in which capacity he oversaw the Palomar and Keck among other telescopes. He is the recipient of a number of awards and honours.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Roger Blandford</span> British theoretical astrophysicist

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">M82 X-2</span> X-ray pulsar located in the galaxy Messier 82

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">SGR J1745−2900</span>

SGR J1745−2900, or PSR J1745−2900, is the first-discovered magnetar orbiting the black hole Sagittarius A*, in the center of the Milky Way. The magnetar was discovered in 2013 using the Effelsberg 100-m Radio Telescope, the Nancay Decimetric Radio Telescope, and the Jodrell Bank Lovell Telescope. The magnetar has a period of 3.76 s and a magnetic flux density of ~ 1010 T (1014 G). The magnetar is 0.33 ly from the central black hole.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Laura Ferrarese</span> Italian astrophysicist

Laura Ferrarese is a researcher in space science at the National Research Council of Canada. Her primary work has been performed using data from the Hubble Space Telescope and the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope.

Daryl Haggard is an American-Canadian astronomer and associate professor of physics in the Department of Physics at McGill University and the McGill Space Institute.

Misty C. Bentz is an American astrophysicist and Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Georgia State University. She is best known for her work on supermassive black hole mass measurements and black hole scaling relationships.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ramesh Narayan (astrophysicist)</span> Indian-American theoretical astrophysicist

Ramesh Narayan is an Indian-American theoretical astrophysicist, currently the Thomas Dudley Cabot Professor of the Natural Sciences in the Department of Astronomy at Harvard University. Full member of the National Academy of Sciences, Ramesh Narayan is widely known for his contributions on the theory of black hole accretion processes. Recently he is involved in the Event Horizon Telescope project, which led in 2019 to the first image of the event horizon of a black hole.

Eric Agol is an American astronomer and astrophysicist who was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2017.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Direct collapse black hole</span> High-mass black hole seeds

Direct collapse black holes (DCBHs) are high-mass black hole seeds, putatively formed within the redshift range z=15–30, when the Universe was about 100–250 million years old. Unlike seeds formed from the first population of stars (also known as Population III stars), direct collapse black hole seeds are formed by a direct, general relativistic instability. They are very massive, with a typical mass at formation of ~105 M. This category of black hole seeds was originally proposed theoretically to alleviate the challenge in building supermassive black holes already at redshift z~7, as numerous observations to date have confirmed.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jane Rigby (astrophysicist)</span> American astrophysicist

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Grant Tremblay</span> American astrophysicist (born 1984)

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References

  1. "Fiona Harrison and Fernando Brandão win American Physical Society Awards". www.caltech.edu. Retrieved 2020-03-31.
  2. "2020 Hans A. Bethe Prize Recipient". American Physical Society. Retrieved 2020-03-31.
  3. Harrison, Fiona (1999). "Optical and Radio Observations of the Afterglow from GRB 990510: Evidence for a Jet". Astrophysical Journal Letters. 523 (2): L121–L124. arXiv: astro-ph/9905306 . Bibcode:1999ApJ...523L.121H. doi:10.1086/312282. S2CID   15374011.
  4. Grefenstette, Brian (2014). "Asymmetries in core-collapse supernovae from maps of radioactive $^{44}$Ti in Cassiopeia A". Nature. 506 (7488): 339–342. arXiv: 1403.4978 . Bibcode:2014Natur.506..339G. doi:10.1038/nature12997. PMID   24553239. S2CID   205237413.
  5. "NASA's NuSTAR Untangles Mystery of How Stars Explode". JPL. Retrieved 24 April 2015.
  6. Risaliti, Guido (2013). "A rapidly spinning supermassive black hole at the centre of NGC 1365". Nature. 494 (7438): 449–451. arXiv: 1302.7002 . Bibcode:2013Natur.494..449R. doi:10.1038/nature11938. PMID   23446416. S2CID   2138608.
  7. Tomsick, John (2014). "The Reflection Component from Cygnus X-1 in the Soft State Measured by NuSTAR and Suzaku". Astrophysical Journal. 780 (1): 78. arXiv: 1310.3830 . Bibcode:2014ApJ...780...78T. doi:10.1088/0004-637X/780/1/78. S2CID   21048167.
  8. Mori, Kaya (2013). "NuSTAR Discovery of a 3.76 s Transient Magnetar Near Sagittarius A*". Astrophysical Journal. 770 (2): L23. arXiv: 1305.1945 . Bibcode:2013ApJ...770L..23M. doi:10.1088/2041-8205/770/2/L23. S2CID   6803966.
  9. Bachetti, Matteo (2014). "An ultraluminous X-ray source powered by an accreting neutron star". Nature. 514 (7521): 202–204. arXiv: 1410.3590 . Bibcode:2014Natur.514..202B. doi:10.1038/nature13791. PMID   25297433. S2CID   4390221.
  10. "NASA's NuSTAR Telescope Discovers Shockingly Bright Dead Star". JPL. Retrieved 24 April 2015.
  11. "Presidential Early Career Award 2000". Archived from the original on 2015-09-12. Retrieved 2015-04-24.
  12. "NASA Medal 2013" (PDF).
  13. "Bruno Rossi Prize".
  14. "APS Fellow Archive". American Physical Society. (search on year=2011 and institution=California Institute of Technology)
  15. "AAS Fellows". AAS. Retrieved 28 September 2020.
  16. "Fiona A Harrison | Caltech". sites.srl.caltech.edu. Retrieved 2024-05-08.