From the July 2014 issue

Web Extra: Contributing to astronomy’s future

Learn more about 20 astronomy professionals who told us where they think astronomy will be in 50 years.
By | Published: July 28, 2014 | Last updated on May 18, 2023
Exoplanet
Most of these scientists believe exoplanet studies will be a major focus of the next 50 years.
Don Dixon for Astronomy
In her September article, “Where is astronomy going?” Sarah Scoles asked 20 leading scientists and astronomy professionals what they think about the future of the field. If you walked away from that Astronomy story wanting to know more about those contributors, then you’re in luck: We’ve linked to the websites, Twitter handles, and blogs of those 20 experts.

Nancy Atkinson, senior editor of Universe Today
Website: www.nancyatkinson.com
Twitter: @Nancy_A [https://twitter.com/Nancy_A]
Universe Today: www.universetoday.com

Sarah Ballard, Carl Sagan Fellow at the University of Washington in Seattle
Website: www.astro.washington.edu/users/sarahba
Twitter: @hubbahubble [https://twitter.com/hubbahubble]

Sarah Dodson-Robinson, assistant professor at the University of Delaware; AAS Annie Jump Cannon Award, 2013
Website: http://web.physics.udel.edu/about/directory/faculty/sarah-dodson-robinson

Bryan Gaensler, director of the Centre of Excellence for All-sky Astrophysics at the University of Sydney, Australia, and author of Extreme Cosmos (Perigee Trade, 2012)
Website: www.physics.usyd.edu.au/~bmg
Twitter: @SciBry [https://twitter.com/SciBry]

Alyssa Goodman, professor at Harvard University and research associate at the Smithsonian Institution
Website: www.cfa.harvard.edu/~agoodman
Twitter: @aagie [https://twitter.com/aagie]

John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate
Website: www.nasa.gov/about/highlights/grunsfeld_biography.html#.U8g4kKjgWbE
Twitter: @SciAstro [https://twitter.com/SciAstro]
Astronaut biography: http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/grunsfel.html

Mark Krumholz, associate professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz; AAS Helen B. Warner Prize, 2013
Website: https://sites.google.com/a/ucsc.edu/krumholz

Emily Lakdawalla, senior editor at The Planetary Society
Website: www.planetary.org/about/staff/emily-lakdawalla.html
Twitter: @elakdawalla [https://twitter.com/elakdawalla]
Planetary Society blog: Snapshots from Space [http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/]

Joseph Lazio, radio astronomer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory
International Astronomical Union listing: www.iau.org/administration/membership/individual/9615/
Jet Propulsion Laboratory: www.jpl.nasa.gov

Emily Levesque, Hubble Fellow at the University of Colorado, Boulder; AAS Annie Jump Cannon Award, 2014
Website: www.emlevesque.com

Katherine Jean Mack, Discovery Early Career Research Award Fellow at the University of Melbourne, Australia
Website: www.astrokatie.com
Twitter: @AstroKatie [https://twitter.com/AstroKatie]

Jonathan McDowell, scientist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and the Chandra X-ray Center and author of Jonathan’s Space Report
Website: http://planet4589.org
Twitter: @planet4589 [https://twitter.com/planet4589]
Jonathon’s Space Report: www.planet4589.org/space/jsr/jsr.html

Matt Mountain, director of the Space Telescope Science Institute
Website: http://director.stsci.edu
Twitter: @matt_mountain [https://twitter.com/matt_mountain]

Alison Peck, deputy project scientist for the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array
Website: www.alma.cl/~apeck

Marc Postman, astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute, former principal investigator of NASA’s Advanced Technology Large-Aperture Space Telescope strategic mission concept study
Website: www.stsci.edu/~postman/Home.html

Scott Ransom, staff astronomer at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory and instrumentation working group lead at the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational
Website: www.cv.nrao.edu/~sransom

Sara Seager, professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and one of TIME’s 25 most influential people in space
Website: http://seagerexoplanets.mit.edu
Twitter: @ProfSaraSeager [https://twitter.com/ProfSaraSeager]
MacArthur Foundation fellow webpage: http://www.macfound.org/fellows/903

Jill Tarter, Bernard M. Oliver chair of the Center for SETI Research at the SETI Institute
Website: www.seti.org/users/jill-tarter
Twitter: @jilltarter [https://twitter.com/jilltarter]

Robert Williams, senior research astronomer and former director of the Space Telescope Science Institute and past president of the International Astronomical Union
Website: www.stsci.edu/~wms
Biography: www.stsci.edu/~wms/Biography.doc

Nadia Zakamska, assistant professor at Johns Hopkins University; AAS Newton Lacy Pierce Prize, 2014
Website: www.pha.jhu.edu/~zakamska