Back in the August 2008 issue, I wrote about 10 “rising stars” in astronomy — a group of investigators whose work we thought you should know about. I’m happy to say two of the picks have already hit the bright lights.
Rising star Scott Gaudi of Ohio State University just won the prestigious Helen B. Warner Prize for Astronomy for his “significant and broad theoretical contributions to the field of exoplanet research, particularly in the area of microlensing detection and characterization of planetary systems, as well as for planets detected via transit and traditional radial velocity techniques.”
And there’s also Josh Bloom, the gamma-ray burst hunter among Astronomy’s rising stars. He won the Newton Lacey Pierce Prize for 2009 “in recognition of his work to explore and understand the nature of gamma-ray burst sources, both as a successful observer of these enigmatic and highly transient phenomena, and through his work to synthesize these observations into a coherent model of the mechanisms and astrophysical sites of gamma-ray burst formation.”
I managed to get a hold of Scott Monday morning to see what he is up to these days and what’s coming down the road for him.
Pendick: Please take a moment to give your Oscar acceptance speech. Who helped make this happen along the way?
Gaudi: I think I may hear the music coming up before I can thank everyone. But, first and foremost, my parents for everything, particularly their support and encouragement.
Second, my PhD adviser and closest collaborator, Andrew Gould, who has done an enormous amount for my career and deserves a share of the prize. Also my collaborators in crime, in particular Dave Bennett and Subo Dong. Some of my supporters in exoplanet research: Sara Seager and Debra Fischer in particular. Finally, my friends who put up with my long working hours and keep me sane.
Pendick: What are you working on right now?
Gaudi: At the moment, I am spending time on support for a new Korean initiative, called the Korean Microlensing Telescope Network (KMTnet). This is a 30 billion Won ($21.6 million) project recently funded by the Korean government to build three 1.6m telescopes with large field-of-view cameras in the southern hemisphere (Chile, South Africa, and Australia), in order to search for Earth-mass planets using microlensing.
This is the 'next-generation' of microlensing planet searches, which will expand our capabilities and discovery rate by at least an order of magnitude. Right now they are in the design phase of the project, and I am using computer simulations to address the impact of various design choices on the survey yields.
Pendick: And what do you see yourself doing in 5 years?
Gaudi: I hope I'll be analyzing the first data from KMTnet, and working on trying to determine the demographics of planets throughout the galaxy, and in particular determining the abundance of Earth-mass planets. Of course, I also hope that I'll be mentoring and training another generation of young graduate students!
Image courtesy: Jim McCulty (OSU)