Kate Isaak

Katherine Gudrun Isaak is a British astrophysicist and the Project Scientist for the European Space Agency Characterising Exoplanet Satellite mission (CHEOPS). She is based at European Space Research and Technology Centre.

Kate Isaak
Alma materUniversity of Cambridge (BA, PhD)
Scientific career
InstitutionsUniversity of Cambridge
University of Cardiff
European Space Agency
ThesisLow-noise instrumentation and astronomical observations of high- redshift objects at submillimetre wavelengths. (1995)

Early life and education

Isaak was born and raised in the United Kingdom.[1] She is the daughter of two scientists.[1] She attended a mixed comprehensive school where there were more girls than boys in her physics class. She has spoken about how important her high school physics and chemistry teachers were in helping her decide to become a scientist.[2] She attended the University of Cambridge where she was a member of Murray Edwards College, Cambridge. Through her time at Cambridge Isaak was supported by W.Owen Saxton, an Emeritus Fellow of Physics who was then Director of Studies.[3] She studied Natural Sciences and specialised in physics in her final year. She remained there for her doctoral research, where she developed instrumentation for submillimetre astronomy. Her project involved investigations into very distant galaxies. After earning her doctorate she moved to Massachusetts, where she worked as a postdoctoral research associate.[1]

Research and career

For her research she used the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope to observe high redshift quasars.[4] This included the detection of interstellar dust in a high redshift quasar. At the time of the discovery it was the most distant detection of dust in the observable universe.[5][6]

She started working with the European Space Agency in 2004 whilst working at Cardiff University. Here she supervised the doctorate of Gwenifer Raymond, who has since become a successful musician.[7] She was part of the SPICA mission and helped to build the SPIRE instrument for the Herschel Space Observatory.[8][9]

Isaak joined the European Space Agency in 2010.[10] She is based at the European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC).[11] Isaak is the European Space Agency Project Scientist for the CHEOPS mission, designed to measure the radii of exoplanets.[12][13][14][15] CHEOPS, which was selected in 2012 as the first Small-class mission in ESA's Cosmic Vision science programme,[16] launched on 18 December 2019. She is a member of the team for the Large Interferometer for Exoplanets (LIFE) space mission.[17]

Selected publications

Her publications include:

  • Isaak, Kate G. (1 July 1994). "Observations of high-redshift objects at submillimetre wavelengths". Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 269: L28–L32. Bibcode:1994MNRAS.269L..28I. doi:10.1093/mnras/269.1.L28.
  • Isaak, Kate G. (21 June 2004). "Submillimetre observations of z > 6 quasars". Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 351 (2): L28–L32. arXiv:astro-ph/0405177. Bibcode:2004MNRAS.351L..29R. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2966.2004.07923.x. S2CID 16113341.
  • Isaak, Kate G. (1 January 2002). "The SCUBA Bright Quasar Survey (SBQS): 850-μm observations of the z>≳ 4 sample". Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 329: 149–162. doi:10.1046/j.1365-8711.2002.04966.x. S2CID 9371669.

See also

References
  1. "Meet Dr Kate Isaak". www.space-awareness.org. Retrieved 30 December 2019.
  2. EU Space Awareness Career Interviews: Kate Isaak, Project Scientist // 02 Early experience, retrieved 30 December 2019
  3. "Dr W Owen Saxton". Murray Edwards College - University of Cambridge. 27 July 2015. Retrieved 30 December 2019.
  4. Isaak, K. G.; McMahon, R. G.; Hills, R. E.; Withington, S. (July 1994). "Observations of high-redshift objects at submillimetre wavelengths". MNRAS. 269: L28–L32. Bibcode:1994MNRAS.269L..28I. doi:10.1093/mnras/269.1.L28. ISSN 0035-8711.
  5. "Spaceflight Now | Breaking News | Astronomers detect stellar ashes at the dawn of time". spaceflightnow.com. Retrieved 30 December 2019.
  6. Cox, P.; Omont, A.; Djorgovski, S. G.; Bertoldi, F.; Pety, J.; Carilli, C. L.; Isaak, K. G.; Beelen, A.; McMahon, R. G.; Castro, S. (May 2002). "CO and Dust in PSS 2322+1944 at a redshift of 4.12". Astronomy & Astrophysics. 387 (2): 406–411. arXiv:astro-ph/0203355. Bibcode:2002A&A...387..406C. doi:10.1051/0004-6361:20020382. ISSN 0004-6361.
  7. Raymond, Gwenifer; Isaak, Kate G.; Clements, Dave; Rykala, Adam; Pearson, Chris (25 June 2010). "The Effectiveness of Mid IR / Far IR Blind, Wide Area, Spectral Surveys in Breaking the Confusion Limit". Publications of the Astronomical Society of Japan. 62 (3): 697–708. arXiv:1003.5541. Bibcode:2010PASJ...62..697R. doi:10.1093/pasj/62.3.697. ISSN 0004-6264.
  8. Swinyard, Bruce; Nakagawa, Takao; Matsuhara, Hideo; Griffin, Doug; Ferlet, Marc; Eccleston, Paul; di Giorgio, Anna; Baselmans, Jochem; Goicoechea, Javier; Isaak, Kate; Mauskopf, Phillip (12 July 2008). Oschmann, Jr, Jacobus M; De Graauw, Mattheus W. M; MacEwen, Howard A (eds.). "The European contribution to the SPICA mission". Space Telescopes and Instrumentation 2008: Optical, Infrared, and Millimeter. SPIE. 7010: 70100I. Bibcode:2008SPIE.7010E..0IS. doi:10.1117/12.789195. S2CID 122283902.
  9. "November 12, 2009". In the Dark. Retrieved 30 December 2019.
  10. "Kate Isaak, ESA CHEOPS Project Scientist". www.esa.int. Retrieved 30 December 2019.
  11. "Kate Isaak". spie.org. Retrieved 30 December 2019.
  12. "European Space Agency launches CHEOPS exoplanet mission". Physics World. 18 December 2019. Retrieved 30 December 2019.
  13. Isaak, K. G.; Benz, W. (September 2019). "The next exoplanet mission to fly". Nature Astronomy. 3 (9): 873. Bibcode:2019NatAs...3..873I. doi:10.1038/s41550-019-0886-9. ISSN 2397-3366.
  14. "European space telescope to measure distant worlds". BBC News. Retrieved 30 December 2019.
  15. "Kate Isaak - Personal Profiles - Cosmos". www.cosmos.esa.int. Retrieved 30 December 2019.
  16. "Call for Media: Cheops launch to study exoplanets". www.esa.int. Retrieved 13 December 2019.
  17. "Team". LIFE space mission. Retrieved 30 December 2019.
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