Biography:Sarah T. Stewart-Mukhopadhyay
Dr. Sarah Toby Stewart-Mukhopadhyay | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1973 (age 50–51) Taiwan |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation | Planetary Scientist |
| Known for | Synestia |
| Academic background | |
| Alma mater | Harvard University |
| Academic work | |
| Discipline | Planetary science |
| Sub-discipline | Astrophysics |
| Institutions | Caltech, Harvard University, UC Davis |
Sarah T. Stewart-Mukhopadhyay is an American planetary scientist known for studying planet formation, planetary geology, and materials science.[1][2] She is a professor at the University of California, Davis in the Earth and Planetary Sciences Department.[1] She was a professor at Harvard University Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences from 2003 to 2014.[3]
Stewart-Mukhopadhyay was named as one of the "Brilliant 10" by Popular Science in 2010, one of "Astronomy's Rising Stars" by Astronomy in 2013, and one of the "Top 100 Science Stories of 2015" in Discover.[4][5] She received an award from the American Astronomical Society for outstanding achievements by a young scientist.[6] She won a MacArthur "Genius" fellowship in 2018.[7]
Education
Stewart-Mukhopadhyay received her undergraduate degree in astrophysics and physics from Harvard in 1995.[3] She completed her PhD at the California Institute of Technology in 2002.[6]
Career and research
Stewart-Mukhopadhyay is director of the Shock Compression Laboratory.[8] At Caltech, she was the first to study shock propagation in ice under similar conditions found in our solar system.[2] Her research group is interested in planetary formation, particularly with giant impacts and impact cratering.
She was awarded the Urey Prize in 2009.[9] Her work on shock-induced ice melting helped to show that liquid water is the most erosive fluid currently at work on the surface of Mars.[10]
One of the tools at the Shock Compression Laboratory is a 40 mm cannon.[11] The shock lab has been located at UC Davis since 2016. Her group also does experiments at the Z Machine at Sandia National Laboratory to study shock-induced vaporization.[12][13][14]
Stewart-Mukhopadhyay proposed a version of the giant impact hypothesis in which an oblate Earth was slowed from a 2.3-hour long day, and allowed to become spherical, by an impact with the planet Theia.[15]
In 2018 Simon J. Lock, Sarah Stewart-Mukhopadhyay, et al. hypothesized a new kind of astronomical object – a synestia – and proposed a new model of how the Earth and Moon were formed.[16][17]
Awards and honors
- In 2023, she was named a Fellow of the American Physical Society, "for the development and application of shock physics techniques to explain the origin and evolution of planetary systems".[18]
- In 2018, she was awarded the MacArthur Fellowship for "advancing new theories of how celestial collisions give birth to planets and their natural satellites, such as the Earth and Moon".[19]
- In 2009, she received the American Astronomical Society's Harold C. Urey Prize from the Division for Planetary Sciences.[6]
- In 2003, she received the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers.
- In 2002, she began the Grove Karl Gilbert Postdoctoral Fellowship at Carnegie Institution of Washington.
- In 2001, she received the Stephen E. Dwornik Planetary Geoscience Student Paper Award, Geological Society of America.[20]
Personal life
Stewart was born in Taiwan, where her father was stationed in the Air Force. Stewart's husband, Sujoy Mukhopadhyay, is also a professor and planetary scientist at UC Davis.[21]
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 "Sarah T. Stewart | UC Davis Earth and Planetary Sciences". https://geology.ucdavis.edu/people/faculty/stewart.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 "Sarah T. Stewart-Mukhopadhyay Awarded 2009 Harold C. Urey Prize". http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=29324.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 "Sarah T. Stewart-Mukhopadhyay". http://eps.harvard.edu/people/sarah-t-stewart-mukhopadhyay.
- ↑ "brilliant 10 2010". http://www.popsci.com/tags/brilliant-10-2010.
- ↑ Karri, Farron (July 2013). "Astronomy's rising stars". Astronomy.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 "2009 DPS Prize Recipients | Division for Planetary Sciences". https://dps.aas.org/prizes/2009.
- ↑ Netburn, Deborah (October 4, 2018). "MacArthur winner Sarah Stewart explores how random collisions shaped our planet and solar system". Los Angeles Times. http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-planet-collisions-macarthur-genius-20181004-story.html.
- ↑ "Shock Compression Laboratory". http://shocklabdavis.net.
- ↑ "Harold C. Urey Prize in Planetary Science". http://dps.aas.org/prizes/urey.
- ↑ "2009 DPS Prize Recipients - Division for Planetary Sciences". http://dps.aas.org/prizes/2009.
- ↑ "Bio". http://eps.harvard.edu/people/sarah-t-stewart-mukhopadhyay.
- ↑ Core work: Iron vapor gives clues to formation of Earth and Moon, Phys.org, March 2, 2015, https://phys.org/news/2015-03-core-iron-vapor-clues-formation.html
- ↑ Neal Singer (March 20, 2015), "Iron Rain fell on early Earth, new Z machine data supports", Official website / Lab News (Sandia National Laboratory), http://www.sandia.gov/news/publications/labnews/archive/15-20-03.html
- ↑ Sarah Stewart, "Shock physics experiments", Official website, https://sarahtstewart.net/shock-experiments/
- ↑ "Separated after birth: Scientists offer a new spin on the origins of Earth's moon", Harvard Gazette, October 17, 2012, http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2012/10/separated-after-birth/
- ↑ Lock, Simon J.; Stewart, Sarah T.; Petaev, Michail I.; Leinhardt, Zoe M.; Mace, Mia T.; Jacobsen, Stein B.; Ćuk, Matija (2018). "The origin of the Moon within a terrestrial synestia". Journal of Geophysical Research 123 (4): 910. doi:10.1002/2017JE005333. Bibcode: 2018JGRE..123..910L.
- ↑ "How the Moon Formed Inside a Vaporized Earth Synestia". University of California, Davis. 2018-02-28. https://www.ucdavis.edu/news/how-moon-formed-inside-vaporized-earth-synestia.
- ↑ "2023 Fellows". APS Fellow Archive. American Physical Society. https://www.aps.org/programs/honors/fellowships/archive-all.cfm?initial=&year=2023.
- ↑ "MacArthur Foundation retrieved October 4, 2018". https://www.macfound.org/fellows/1024/.
- ↑ "GSA Planetary Geology Division | Dwornik Awards". http://rock.geosociety.org/pgd/dwornik.html.
- ↑ "UC Davis prof 'went into shock' over MacArthur 'genius' grant for her work in planet science". https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/education/article219492230.html.
External links
- "Where did the Moon come from? A new theory : Sarah T. Stewart". TED Salon: U.S. Air Force : February 2019. 13 March 2019. https://www.ted.com/talks/sarah_t_stewart_where_did_the_moon_come_from_a_new_theory.
- The Surprising State of the Earth after the Moon-Forming Giant Impact - Sarah Stewart (SETI Talks), Jan 28, 2015
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