Heidi Jo Newberg (née Marvin) is an American astrophysicist known for her work in understanding the structure of our

Milky Way The Milky Way is the galaxy that includes our Solar System, with the name describing the galaxy's appearance from Earth: a hazy band of light seen in the night sky formed from stars that cannot be individually distinguished by the naked eye ...

galaxy. Among her team's findings are that the Milky Way is cannibalizing stars from smaller galaxies and that the Milky Way is larger and has more ripples than was previously understood. She is a founding participant in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and the Sloan Extension for Galactic Understanding and Exploration (SEGUE), and is a leader of the astrophysical MilkyWay@home

volunteer computing Volunteer computing is a type of distributed computing in which people donate their computers' unused resources to a research-oriented project, and sometimes in exchange for credit points. The fundamental idea behind it is that a modern desktop co ...

project team. She is a professor in the Department of Physics, Applied Physics, and Astronomy at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in

Troy, New York Troy is a city in the U.S. state of New York and the county seat of Rensselaer County. The city is located on the western edge of Rensselaer County and on the eastern bank of the Hudson River. Troy has close ties to the nearby cities of Albany a ...

, US, and a Fellow of the

American Physical Society The American Physical Society (APS) is a not-for-profit membership organization of professionals in physics and related disciplines, comprising nearly fifty divisions, sections, and other units. Its mission is the advancement and diffusion of k ...

Career

Newberg received her

bachelor's degree A bachelor's degree (from Middle Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate academic degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six ...

Physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which r ...

from the

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute () (RPI) is a private research university in Troy, New York, with an additional campus in Hartford, Connecticut. A third campus in Groton, Connecticut closed in 2018. RPI was established in 1824 by Stephen Van ...

in 1987. She received her

Ph.D A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common Academic degree, degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields ...

. in Physics from the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

in 1992, working on the Berkeley Automated Supernova Search, which measured the

supernova A supernova is a powerful and luminous explosion of a star. It has the plural form supernovae or supernovas, and is abbreviated SN or SNe. This transient astronomical event occurs during the last evolutionary stages of a massive star or when ...

rates as a function of supernova type in Virgo-distance galaxies; and the

Supernova Cosmology Project The Supernova Cosmology Project is one of two research teams that determined the likelihood of an accelerating universe and therefore a positive cosmological constant, using data from the redshift of Type Ia supernovae. The project is headed by S ...

, which measured the cosmological parameters

Omega Omega (; capital: Ω, lowercase: ω; Ancient Greek ὦ, later ὦ μέγα, Modern Greek ωμέγα) is the twenty-fourth and final letter in the Greek alphabet. In the Greek numeric system/isopsephy (gematria), it has a value of 800. The wo ...

and

Lambda Lambda (}, ''lám(b)da'') is the 11th letter of the Greek alphabet, representing the voiced alveolar lateral approximant . In the system of Greek numerals, lambda has a value of 30. Lambda is derived from the Phoenician Lamed . Lambda gave rise ...

using the light curves of distant supernovae, and provided strong evidence that the expansion of our universe is accelerating. In 2007, she shared the

Gruber Prize in Cosmology The Gruber Prize in Cosmology, established in 2000, is one of three prestigious international awards worth US$500,000 made by the Gruber Foundation, a non-profit organization based at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Since 2001, the G ...

along with the other members of the Supernova Cosmology Project and in 2011 the group's lead won the

Nobel Prize in Physics ) , image = Nobel Prize.png , alt = A golden medallion with an embossed image of a bearded man facing left in profile. To the left of the man is the text "ALFR•" then "NOBEL", and on the right, the text (smaller) "NAT•" then " ...

. Newberg shared the 2015

Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics The Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics is one of the Breakthrough Prizes, awarded by the Breakthrough Prize Board. Initially named Fundamental Physics Prize, it was founded in July 2012 by Russia-born Israeli entrepreneur, venture capita ...

along with other members of the Supernova Cosmology Project. At

Fermilab Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab), located just outside Batavia, Illinois, near Chicago, is a United States Department of Energy national laboratory specializing in high-energy particle physics. Since 2007, Fermilab has been operat ...

, she worked on the

Sloan Digital Sky Survey The Sloan Digital Sky Survey or SDSS is a major multi-spectral imaging and spectroscopic redshift survey using a dedicated 2.5-m wide-angle optical telescope at Apache Point Observatory in New Mexico, United States. The project began in 2000 a ...

starting in 1992, and the Sloan Extension for Galactic Understanding and Exploration. She has been a member of the faculty of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute since 1999. Newberg has been the director of the Hirsch Observatory since 2001 and was the president of the board of trustees of the

Dudley Observatory Dudley Observatory is an astronomical observatory originally located in Albany, New York, and now in Loudonville, New York. It is no longer operating as a scientific observatory, but remains the oldest non-academic institution of astronomical res ...

2010–2021. In 2012, she was elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society "for her contributions to our understanding of the structure of the Milky Way and the universe and for the development software and hardware infrastructure for measuring and extracting meaningful information from large astronomical survey data sets." She has published papers in diverse areas of galactic and extragalactic astronomy, including: supernova phenomenology, measuring cosmological parameters from supernovae, galaxy

photometry Photometry can refer to: * Photometry (optics), the science of measurement of visible light in terms of its perceived brightness to human vision * Photometry (astronomy), the measurement of the flux or intensity of an astronomical object's electrom ...

, color selection of QSOs, properties of stars, and the structure of our galaxy.

Personal life

Newberg was born in

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

She is married to Lee Newberg and has four children.

References

External links

Heidi Jo Newberg's webpage at Github.ioList of scholarly publications
as provided by the SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS) abstract server. *Chapter contributor to ''Motherhood, the Elephant in the Laboratory: Women Scientists Speak Out'' by Emily Monosson ()
Intervention #2
collaboration with choreographer Wally Cardona. {{DEFAULTSORT:Newberg, Heidi Jo Year of birth missing (living people) 21st-century American physicists American women physicists American women astronomers Fellows of the American Physical Society Living people Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute alumni Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute faculty University of California, Berkeley alumni American women academics 21st-century American women scientists