Lisa Kewley

Lisa Jennifer Kewley FRSN FAA (born 1974) is an Australian Astrophysicist and current Director of the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian. Previously, Kewley was Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for All Sky Astrophysics in 3-D (ASTRO 3-D) and ARC Laureate Fellow at the Australian National University College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, where she was also a Professor.[2][3] Specialising in galaxy evolution, she won the Annie Jump Cannon Award in Astronomy in 2005 for her studies of oxygen in galaxies, and the Newton Lacy Pierce Prize in Astronomy in 2008. In 2014 she was elected a fellow of the Australian Academy of Science. In 2020 she received the James Craig Watson Medal.[4] In 2021 she was elected as an international member of the National Academy of Sciences.[5] In 2022 she became the first female director of the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian.[6]

Lisa Jennifer Kewley
Born1974 (age 48–49)
Canberra, Australian Capital Territory
NationalityAustralian
Alma materUniversity of Adelaide
Australian National University
AwardsThe Bok Prize (1996)
Annie Jump Cannon Award in Astronomy (2005)
Newton Lacy Pierce Prize (2008)
Australian Financial Review & Westpac
100 Women of Influence (Innovation) (2014)
Australian Laureate Fellowship (2015)[1]
Scientific career
FieldsAstronomy
Websitehttp://www.ifa.hawaii.edu/~kewley/
https://anu.academia.edu/LisaKewley

Life

Kewley was raised in South Australia. Her parents encouraged engagement with the sciences and she was influenced by a high school physics teacher, and participation at a school stargazing camp, to become interested in astronomy.[7] After school, she enrolled in a Bachelor of Science at the Adelaide University, graduating with a BSc (Hons) in astrophysics.[8] She then moved to Canberra to pursue a doctorate in astrophysics at the Australian National University, which was awarded in 2002.[9] In 2001, she spent some time in the United States as a visiting scholar at Johns Hopkins University.[7] During this time she co-authored a paper in The Astrophysical Journal, called "Theoretical Modeling of Starburst Galaxies",[10] which as of 2016 was her most-cited publication.[11]

After completing her doctorate, Kewley moved to the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on a CfA fellowship, working on the formation and evolution of stars.[8] Her mentors there included American astrophysicist Margaret Geller.[7] Awarded a Hubble postdoctoral fellowship in 2004, she then continued her work at the Institute for Astronomy at the University of Hawaiʻi in 2005. Kewley was part of a team that used re-analysis of a Hubble Space Telescope image to identify a distant galaxy 9.3 billion light years distant.[12] She then worked with the W. M. Keck Observatory on Mauna Kea, analysing data on the oxygen content of this and other galaxies of different ages, contributing to the understanding of their evolution. For this research, in 2005 she received the Annie Jump Cannon Award in Astronomy.[9] There was further recognition of her work in 2008, when Kewley won the Newton Lacy Pierce Prize in Astronomy, awarded by the American Astronomical Society.[13] The award was for her research "that has shown how the properties of a galaxy depend on how long ago it was formed".[14] Her work studied the variation in properties of old and new galaxies, including oxygen richness, star formation rate, and the characteristics of the galaxy's nucleus.[14]

In 2011, Kewley returned to Australia as a professor for the Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the Australian National University.[15]

In 2014, Kewley was elected Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science.[16] She was chosen to deliver the 2018 Harley Wood lecture, an annual event of the Astronomical Society of Australia, on the topic of oxygen and stars.[17] She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of New South Wales in 2020.[18]

Kewley developed the proposal for, and is director of, the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence in All Sky Astrophysics, based at Mount Stromlo.[19]

She married her husband Reuben in Canberra in 2001, shortly before they moved to Massachusetts.[7] They have a son (born 2008) and a daughter (born 2011), both born when she was living and working in Hawai'i.[7]

References
  1. "ANU secures three Australian Laureate Fellowships". Australian National University. 25 June 2015. Retrieved 21 January 2018.
  2. "Professor Lisa Kewley". ANU Researchers. Australian National University. 2014. Archived from the original on 7 December 2018. Retrieved 31 May 2014.
  3. "Canberra astronomer becomes first Australian to win major US science award in 133 years". Phys.org. 22 January 2020. Retrieved 14 February 2020.
  4. James Craig Watson Medal 2020
  5. Newly Elected members to the National Academy of Sciences, April 2021
  6. "Lisa Kewley Named Director of the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian". 14 March 2022. Retrieved 16 August 2022.
  7. "In pursuit of two goals: An award-winning astronomer who needs both career and family". Gender Institute. Australian National University. 7 November 2012. Archived from the original on 28 March 2019. Retrieved 31 May 2014.
  8. "Lisa Kewley". Institute for Astronomy, University of Hawaiʻi. 2006. Archived from the original on 31 May 2014. Retrieved 31 May 2014.
  9. "Kewley Wins National Astronomy Award". Nā Kilo Hōkū (Newsletter of the Institute of Astronomy, University of Hawaiʻi (18). 2006.
  10. Kewley, L. J.; Dopita, M. A.; Sutherland, R. S.; Heisler, C. A.; Trevena, J. (2001). "Theoretical Modeling of Starburst Galaxies". The Astrophysical Journal. 556 (1): 121–140. arXiv:astro-ph/0106324. Bibcode:2001ApJ...556..121K. doi:10.1086/321545. S2CID 8611687.
  11. "Lisa Kewley citation indices". Google Scholar. 2013. Retrieved 31 May 2014.
  12. Ferrara, Michele; Marcel Clemens (2 June 2011). "Sp1149 and the perfect gravitational lens". Astrofilo. Astro Publishing. Retrieved 31 May 2014.
  13. "Newton Lacy Pierce Prize in Astronomy". American Astronomical Society. 2014. Archived from the original on 11 February 2013. Retrieved 31 May 2014.
  14. "UH Astronomers Win American Astronomical Society Prizes". Institute for Astronomy, University of Hawaiʻi. 4 February 2008. Retrieved 31 May 2014.
  15. Bhathal, Ragbir; Ralph Sutherland; Harvey Butcher (2013). Mt Stromlo Observatory: From Bush Observatory to the Nobel Prize. CSIRO Publishing. p. 260. ISBN 978-1486300761.
  16. "Fellows elected in 2014". Australian Academy of Science. 2014. Retrieved 25 May 2014.
  17. "Harley Wood Lecture ASA Annual Scientific Meeting 2018". Swinburne Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing. Archived from the original on 13 March 2019. Retrieved 26 July 2019.
  18. "Fellows of the Royal Society of NSW (K)". Royal Society of New South Wales. Archived from the original on 2 April 2021. Retrieved 1 July 2021.
  19. Le Lievre, Kimberley (3 March 2019). "Meet the women leading Australia's charge in science and space". Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 26 July 2019.
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