Jacqueline Henrie͏̈tte van Gorkom (born 30 March 1947) is a Dutch

radio astronomer Radio astronomy is a subfield of astronomy that studies celestial objects at radio frequencies. The first detection of radio waves from an astronomical object was in 1933, when Karl Jansky at Bell Telephone Laboratories reported radiation coming f ...

and Rutherfurd Professor of Astronomy at

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

. Van Gorkom is known for her contributions to the field of

galaxy evolution The study of galaxy formation and evolution is concerned with the processes that formed a heterogeneous universe from a homogeneous beginning, the formation of the first galaxies, the way galaxies change over time, and the processes that have gen ...

, particularly through observations of

neutral hydrogen The hydrogen line, 21 centimeter line, or H I line is the electromagnetic radiation spectral line that is created by a change in the energy state of neutral hydrogen atoms. This electromagnetic radiation has a precise frequency of , w ...

gas.

Education and career

Jacqueline van Gorkom was born in

Voorburg Voorburg is a town and former municipality in the west part of the province of South Holland, Netherlands. Together with Leidschendam and Stompwijk, it makes up the municipality Leidschendam-Voorburg. It has a population of about 39,000 people ...

. She received her Ph.D. in astronomy from the

University of Groningen The University of Groningen (abbreviated as UG; nl, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, abbreviated as RUG) is a Public university#Continental Europe, public research university of more than 30,000 students in the city of Groningen (city), Groningen in ...

Kapteyn Astronomical Institute The Kapteyn Astronomical Institute is the department of astronomy of the University of Groningen The University of Groningen (abbreviated as UG; nl, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, abbreviated as RUG) is a Public university#Continental Europe, pu ...

in 1980. She worked at the

National Radio Astronomy Observatory The National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) is a federally funded research and development center of the United States National Science Foundation operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc. for the purpose of radio a ...

(NRAO) in Socorro, New Mexico for 8 years as a research scientist before joining the faculty at Columbia in 1988. She has held visiting appointments at the

Raman Research Institute The Raman Research Institute (RRI) is an institute for scientific research located in Bangalore, India. It was founded by Nobel laureate C. V. Raman in 1948. Although it began as an institute privately owned by Sir C. V. Raman, it is now fund ...

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...

California Institute of Technology The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech or CIT)The university itself only spells its short form as "Caltech"; the institution considers other spellings such a"Cal Tech" and "CalTech" incorrect. The institute is also occasional ...

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 ...

, and the Kapteyn Institute. She has served as chair and Director of Graduate Studies for the Department of Astronomy and is currently the Rutherfurd Professor of Astronomy at Columbia.

Research

Van Gorkom specializes in studies of neutral hydrogen, the most abundant element in the Universe, through observations of the 21cm hydrogen line. Her research focuses on the structure and evolution of galaxies and the role of gas in galaxy formation. Her research aims to address questions such as: * How does the environment affect the evolution of galaxies? * What are the residual signatures of the formation process around galaxies? * Do galaxies evolve along the Hubble sequence? She currently leads the COSMOS HI Large Extra-galactic Survey (CHILES) project, a 1000-hour observation using the

Very Large Array The Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) is a centimeter-wavelength radio astronomy observatory located in central New Mexico on the Plains of San Agustin, between the towns of Magdalena and Datil, ~ west of Socorro. The VLA comprises twen ...

. CHILES will study the morphology and kinematics of gas in galaxies between redshift z=0 and z=0.45 and serve as a pathfinder experiment for the

Square Kilometre Array The Square Kilometre Array (SKA) is an intergovernmental international radio telescope project being built in Australia (low-frequency) and South Africa (mid-frequency). The combining infrastructure, the Square Kilometre Array Observatory (SKA ...

Awards and honors

* 2019 - Hintze Lecture at University of Oxford * 2016 - Karl G. Jansky Lectureship * 2008 - Miller Professor at University of California, Berkeley * 2006 - Elected corresponding member of the

Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences ( nl, Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen, abbreviated: KNAW) is an organization dedicated to the advancement of science and literature in the Netherlands. The academy is housed ...

* 2005 - Da Vinci Professor at the Kapteyn Institute * 1985 -

National Science Foundation The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National I ...

Faculty Award for Women

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gorkom, Jacqueline van 1947 births Living people American women astronomers 20th-century Dutch astronomers Columbia University faculty Members of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences People from Voorburg University of Groningen alumni 21st-century American astronomers