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Debra Ann Fischer is a professor of
astronomy Astronomy () is a natural science that studies astronomical object, celestial objects and phenomena. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and chronology of the Universe, evolution. Objects of interest ...
at
Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...
researching detection and characterization of exoplanets. She was part of the team to discover the first known multiple-planet system.


Education

Fischer received her degree from the
University of Iowa The University of Iowa (UI, U of I, UIowa, or simply Iowa) is a public university, public research university in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. Founded in 1847, it is the oldest and largest university in the state. The University of Iowa is org ...
in 1975, a masters of science from
San Francisco State University San Francisco State University (commonly referred to as San Francisco State, SF State and SFSU) is a public research university in San Francisco. As part of the 23-campus California State University system, the university offers 118 different b ...
in 1992, and her PhD from the
University of California at Santa Cruz The University of California, Santa Cruz (UC Santa Cruz or UCSC) is a public land-grant research university in Santa Cruz, California. It is one of the ten campuses in the University of California system. Located on Monterey Bay, on the edge o ...
in 1998.


Research and career

Fischer has co-authored over 100 papers on
dwarf star A dwarf star is a star of relatively small size and low luminosity. Most main sequence stars are dwarf stars. The meaning of the word "dwarf" was later extended to some star-sized objects that are not stars, and compact stellar remnants which ar ...
s and sub-stellar mass objects in the galactic neighborhood, including many on extrasolar planets. Her work "The Twenty Five Year Lick Planet Search" is summarized in a paper by Fischer, Marcy & Spronck 2014. She is a principal investigator with the N2K Consortium searching for
exoplanet An exoplanet or extrasolar planet is a planet outside the Solar System. The first possible evidence of an exoplanet was noted in 1917 but was not recognized as such. The first confirmation of detection occurred in 1992. A different planet, init ...
s. She co-leads the planet search team with Gregory P. Laughlin and Jessi Cisewski looking for
extrasolar planet An exoplanet or extrasolar planet is a planet outside the Solar System. The first possible evidence of an exoplanet was noted in 1917 but was not recognized as such. The first confirmation of detection occurred in 1992. A different planet, init ...
s. She was the primary investigator for Chiron, the
CTIO The Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO) is an astronomical observatory located on Cerro Tololo in the Coquimbo Region of northern Chile, with additional facilities located on Cerro Pachón about to the southeast. It is approximately ...
High Resolution Spectrometer. In 2011, she started the
Fiber-optic Improved Next-generation Doppler Search for Exo-Earths The Fiber-Optic Improved Next-Generation Doppler Search for Exo-Earths (FINDS Exo-Earths) is a radial-velocity spectrograph developed by Debra Fischer. It is installed on the 3 meter telescope in Lick Observatory in Mount Hamilton. It has been ...
with
the Planetary Society The Planetary Society is an American internationally-active non-governmental nonprofit organization. It is involved in research, public outreach, and political space advocacy for engineering projects related to astronomy, planetary science, a ...
, an instrument that will help planet hunters find Earth-like extrasolar planets.


Honors and awards

* Elected a Legacy Fellow of the
American Astronomical Society The American Astronomical Society (AAS, sometimes spoken as "double-A-S") is an American society of professional astronomers and other interested individuals, headquartered in Washington, DC. The primary objective of the AAS is to promote the adv ...
in 2020 * 2021 class of Fellows of the
American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is an American international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific respons ...
. *Elected Member of the National Academy of Sciences in 2021


See also

*
List of stars with confirmed planets From the total of stars known to have exoplanets (as of ), there are a total of known multiplanetary systems, or stars with at least two confirmed planets, beyond the Solar System. This list includes systems with at least three confirmed planet ...
*
List of women in leadership positions on astronomical instrumentation projects The following is a list of women who are the Principal Investigator In many countries, the term principal investigator (PI) refers to the holder of an independent grant and the lead researcher for the grant project, usually in the sciences, such ...


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fischer, Debra Living people American women astronomers Discoverers of exoplanets Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Yale University faculty San Francisco State University alumni University of Iowa alumni University of California, Santa Cruz alumni Planetary scientists Women planetary scientists Fellows of the American Astronomical Society Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences 1951 births