Rebecca Oppenheimer is an American astrophysicist and one of four curator/professors in the Department of

Astrophysics Astrophysics is a science that employs the methods and principles of physics and chemistry in the study of astronomical objects and phenomena. As one of the founders of the discipline said, Astrophysics "seeks to ascertain the nature of the h ...

at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) on

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

Upper West Side The Upper West Side (UWS) is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It is bounded by Central Park on the east, the Hudson River on the west, West 59th Street to the south, and West 110th Street to the north. The Upper West ...

. Oppenheimer is a comparative exoplanetary scientist. She investigates planets orbiting stars other than the Sun. Her optics laboratory is the birthplace of a number of new astronomical instruments designed to tackle the problem of directly seeing and taking spectra of nearby solar systems with exoplanets and studying their composition, with the ultimate goal of finding life outside the

solar system The Solar System Capitalization of the name varies. The International Astronomical Union, the authoritative body regarding astronomical nomenclature, specifies capitalizing the names of all individual astronomical objects but uses mixed "Solar ...

Early life and education

Oppenheimer attended the Horace Mann School in the

Bronx The Bronx () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the state of New York. It is south of Westchester County; north and east of the New York City borough of Manhattan, across the Harlem River; and north of the New Y ...

. After graduating in 1990, she attended

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 ...

, where she was an I. I. Rabi Science Scholar. She received a B.A. in

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 ...

from Columbia in 1994. In 1999 she was granted a Ph.D. in

astrophysics Astrophysics is a science that employs the methods and principles of physics and chemistry in the study of astronomical objects and phenomena. As one of the founders of the discipline said, Astrophysics "seeks to ascertain the nature of the h ...

from the

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 ...

and spent the following two years at the

University of California The University of California (UC) is a public land-grant research university system in the U.S. state of California. The system is composed of the campuses at Berkeley, Davis, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, University of Califor ...

at Berkeley on a

Hubble Space Telescope The Hubble Space Telescope (often referred to as HST or Hubble) is a space telescope that was launched into low Earth orbit in 1990 and remains in operation. It was not the first space telescope, but it is one of the largest and most vers ...

Postdoctoral Research Fellowship. In 2001, she moved back to

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

to research at the AMNH, where she joined the faculty in 2004. Oppenheimer regularly gives public and professional lectures on astronomical research.

Career

Oppenheimer holds an adjunct professorship at

's Department of

Astronomy Astronomy () is a natural science that studies celestial objects and phenomena. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and evolution. Objects of interest include planets, moons, stars, nebulae, g ...

and has published over two hundred and sixty research and public-oriented science articles, with an h-index over 55 and more than 10,000 citations. She holds three patents, is the co-discoverer of the first

brown dwarf Brown dwarfs (also called failed stars) are substellar objects that are not massive enough to sustain nuclear fusion of ordinary hydrogen ( 1H) into helium in their cores, unlike a main-sequence star. Instead, they have a mass between the most ...

, Gliese 229B, and is active in research on exoplanets. She has led or co-led many novel instrumentation projects, including the Lyot Project,

Project 1640 Project 1640 is a high contrast imaging project at Palomar Observatory. It seeks to image brown dwarfs and Jupiter-sized planets around nearby stars. Rebecca Oppenheimer, associate curator and chair of the Astrophysics Department at the American Mus ...

, the Gemini Planet Imager, Palomar Adaptive Optics, and the Palomar Advanced Radial Velocity Instrument. Oppenheimer also works on ultracool

white dwarfs A white dwarf is a stellar core remnant composed mostly of electron-degenerate matter. A white dwarf is very dense: its mass is comparable to the Sun's, while its volume is comparable to the Earth's. A white dwarf's faint luminosity comes fr ...

, the end states of 99% of stars, including the Sun, their role in comprising the

baryonic dark matter In astronomy and cosmology, baryonic dark matter is dark matter composed of baryons. Only a small proportion of the dark matter in the universe is likely to be baryonic. Characteristics As "dark matter", baryonic dark matter is undetectable by it ...

, as well as

coronagraphy A coronagraph is a telescopic attachment designed to block out the direct light from a star so that nearby objects – which otherwise would be hidden in the star's bright glare – can be resolved. Most coronagraphs are intended to view t ...

, the art of seeing faint celestial objects next to bright ones. Oppenheimer has served on numerous

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeedin ...

advisory committees including the TPF Science and Technology Definition Team, The NASA Astrophysics Senior review for 2014, 2016 (Chair), and 2019, as well as various NSF and NRC committees. Oppenheimer has been a member of NASA's Exoplanet Technology Assessment Committee since 2015. She is an active member 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 ...

and the

International Astronomical Union The International Astronomical Union (IAU; french: link=yes, Union astronomique internationale, UAI) is a nongovernmental organisation with the objective of advancing astronomy in all aspects, including promoting astronomical research, outreac ...

. She is a member of the A,B,C,D,F, and G affiliations within the IAU. Oppenheimer's education-related efforts at the AMNH include curating th
AstroBulletin
series of news items and bi-annual documentaries. She is also Curator-in-Charge of th
Digital Universe Atlas
She co-curated the space show
Journey to the Stars
' and curated the exhibit
Searching for New Worlds
'. Her video, "The Known Universe," created as part of an exhibit with the Rubin Museum, is an early example of a science video going viral on

YouTube YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...

in 2009. According to

Google Scholar Google Scholar is a freely accessible web search engine that indexes the full text or metadata of scholarly literature across an array of publishing formats and disciplines. Released in beta in November 2004, the Google Scholar index includes ...

, Oppenheimer's peer-reviewed articles as of 2021 have been cited 10,878 times. Her

h-index The ''h''-index is an author-level metric that measures both the productivity and citation impact of the publications, initially used for an individual scientist or scholar. The ''h''-index correlates with obvious success indicators such as ...

is 55 and

i10-index Author-level metrics are citation metrics that measure the bibliometric impact of individual authors, researchers, academics, and scholars. Many metrics have been developed that take into account varying numbers of factors (from only considering ...

is 133.

Awards and honors

* 2020
inStyle Magazine, 50 Badass Women of 2020, 16th
* 2019: Fulcrum Arts Honoree for accomplishments at the intersection of science and art * 2009: Blavatnik Award for Young Scientists,

New York Academy of Sciences The New York Academy of Sciences (originally the Lyceum of Natural History) was founded in January 1817 as the Lyceum of Natural History. It is the fourth oldest scientific society in the United States. An independent, nonprofit organization wi ...

* 2003: Carter Memorial Lecturer,

Carter Observatory Space Place at Carter Observatory (or simply Space Place) is an observatory in Wellington, New Zealand, located at the top of the Wellington Botanic Garden. The site was originally home to the Wellington City Observatory (nicknamed "The Tin Sh ...

, Wellington, New Zealand * 2002-2004: Kalbfleisch Research Fellowship,

American Museum of Natural History The American Museum of Natural History (abbreviated as AMNH) is a natural history museum on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. In Theodore Roosevelt Park, across the street from Central Park, the museum complex comprises 26 int ...

* 2002: National Academies of Science, Beckman Frontiers of Science, Invited Participant * 1999-2002: Hubble Postdoctoral Research Fellowship * 1994-1997:

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 ...

Graduate Research Fellowship * 1990-1994: I.I. Rabi Science Scholar,

* 1990: Westinghouse Science Competition, Honorable Mention * 1989:

Science Writing Competition, First Place

Personal life

Oppenheimer grew up in the

, NY. Oppenheimer is a

trans woman A trans woman or a transgender woman is a woman who was assigned male at birth. Trans women have a female gender identity, may experience gender dysphoria, and may transition; this process commonly includes hormone replacement therapy and s ...

and an activist for the rights of LGBT people. She came out in 2014 and was featured in a ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' piece where she wrote about being transgender and a scientist.

References

External links

Rebecca Oppenheimer
at

Department of Astrophysics
at American Museum of Natural History
The Lyot Project
{{DEFAULTSORT:Oppenheimer, Rebecca American women astronomers Living people LGBT people from New York (state) American LGBT scientists Scientists from New York City People associated with the American Museum of Natural History California Institute of Technology alumni Columbia College (New York) alumni Horace Mann School alumni Transgender women 1972 births Transgender academics Transgender scientists Columbia University faculty