Alyssa Ann Goodman (born July 1, 1962) is the Robert Wheeler Willson Professor of Applied

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 ...

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

, co-Director for Science at the

Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study The Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University—also known as the Harvard Radcliffe Institute—is a part of Harvard University that fosters interdisciplinary research across the humanities, sciences, social sciences, arts, a ...

, Research Associate of the

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded ...

, and the founding director of the Harvard Initiative in Innovative Computing.

Education

A native of New York, Goodman attended

Herricks High School Herricks High School is a four-year comprehensive public high school with 1450 students accredited by the New York State Board of Regents and the Middle States Association. The school is located in Searingtown, New York, 20 miles east of Manhattan. ...

New Hyde Park, New York New Hyde Park is a village (New York), village in the Towns of Hempstead, New York, Hempstead and North Hempstead, New York, North Hempstead in Nassau County, New York, Nassau County, on Long Island, in New York (state), New York, United States. ...

. She later received her

B.S. A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University of ...

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

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

in 1984. She then continued her education at

receiving a

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 in 1989.

Career

Goodman's research is conducted at the Center for Astrophysics Harvard & Smithsonian in

Cambridge, Massachusetts Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As part of the Boston metropolitan area, the cities population of the 2020 U.S. census was 118,403, making it the fourth most populous city in the state, behind Boston, ...

, where she studies the dense gas between stars. In particular, her research interest is on how interstellar gas arranges itself into new stars. Goodman is also a principal investigator of the COMPLETE Survey of Star-Forming Regions, which maps out three large star-forming regions in the

galaxy A galaxy is a system of stars, stellar remnants, interstellar gas, dust, dark matter, bound together by gravity. The word is derived from the Greek ' (), literally 'milky', a reference to the Milky Way galaxy that contains the Solar System. ...

in their entirety. Goodman's personal research presently focuses primarily on new ways to visualize and analyze the tremendous data volumes created by large and/or diverse astronomical surveys. She has worked closely with Curtis Wong and Jonathan Fay on the Microsoft WorldWide Telescope project at

Microsoft Research Microsoft Research (MSR) is the research subsidiary of Microsoft. It was created in 1991 by Richard Rashid, Bill Gates and Nathan Myhrvold with the intent to advance state-of-the-art computing and solve difficult world problems through technologi ...

and 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 ...

to create, open-source, and enhance the use of the

WorldWide Telescope WorldWide Telescope (WWT) is an open-source set of applications, data and cloud services, originally created by Microsoft Research but now an open source project hosted on GitHub. The .NET Foundation holds the copyright and the project is manage ...

, a computer program offering a virtual online universe to researchers and educators. Goodman was named “Scientist of the Year” by the Harvard Foundation in 2015. She has served on several data-related institutional and government advisory committees, including the National Academy's Board on Research Data and Information, and the NSF-sponsored Council on Big Data, Ethics, and Society. From 2008 to 2009, Goodman was a "Scholar-in-Residence" at

WGBH WGBH may refer to: * WGBH Educational Foundation, based in Boston, Massachusetts, United States ** WGBH (FM), a public radio station at Boston, Massachusetts on 89.7 MHz owned by the WGBH Educational Foundation ** WGBH-TV WGBH-TV (channel 2), ...

, while on sabbatical. She founded PredictionX, a modular learning program at Harvard that traces humanity's effort to understand the future. She also appeared in a '

Fetch! with Ruff Ruffman ''Fetch! with Ruff Ruffman'' (sometimes shortened as ''Fetch!'') is an American live-action/animated television series that aired on PBS Kids Go! and is largely targeted towards middle school children. It is a reality-game show that is hosted by ...

episode in season 4.

Honors

* Elected a Legacy Fellow of the

(2020) * Harvard Foundation's 2015 Scientist of the Year * Bok Prize, Harvard (1998) *

Newton Lacy Pierce Prize in Astronomy The Newton Lacy Pierce Prize in Astronomy is awarded annually by the American Astronomical Society to a young (less than age 36) astronomer for outstanding achievement in observational astronomical research. The prize is named after Newton Lacy Pi ...

from the

(1997)

References

External links

Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Goodman, Alyssa A. 1962 births Living people People from New Hyde Park, New York American women astronomers Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni MIT Department of Physics alumni Harvard University faculty Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Scientists from New York (state) Fellows of the American Astronomical Society Herricks High School alumni Women astrophysicists