Fiona A. Harrison

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Fiona A. Harrison
Harrison speaks at the 2016 World Economic Forum
Born
Santa Monica, California
NationalityAmerican
EducationDartmouth College
UC Berkeley
Awards
Scientific career
FieldsAstrophysics
Websitepma.divisions.caltech.edu/people/fiona-a-harrisonwww.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]

Biography

Harrison was born in

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

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.

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

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]

See also

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. S2CID 15374011
    .
  4. S2CID 205237413
    .
  5. ^ "NASA's NuSTAR Untangles Mystery of How Stars Explode". JPL. Retrieved 24 April 2015.
  6. S2CID 2138608
    .
  7. S2CID 21048167
    .
  8. S2CID 6803966
    .
  9. 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.
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