Padi Boyd

Padi Boyd is an American astrophysicist. She is the head of NASA's Exoplanets and Stellar Astrophysics Laboratory and an Associate Director at the Goddard Space Flight Center.[1][2] She is the project scientist for NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) mission.[3]

Padi Boyd
Boyd at a briefing in the Press Site auditorium at Kennedy Space Center in Florida
NationalityAmerican
Other namesPatricia T. Boyd
Alma materDrexel University, Ph.D.
Scientific career
FieldsAstrophysics
InstitutionsNASA
ThesisChaotic Scattering in the Gravitational Three-body Problem (1993)

Early life and education

Boyd was born in Perth Amboy, New Jersey. She was more interested in the arts than in science as a child, but became interested in astronomy in high school, spurred in part by Carl Sagan's Cosmos television show. Raised in Metuchen, New Jersey, she graduated from Metuchen High School and was inducted in 2015 into the school's hall of fame as part of its inaugural class.[4] She began conducted astronomical research as an undergraduate at Villanova University, and went on to pursue graduate studies as Drexel University, where she earned a Ph.D. in physics and atmospheric science in 1993.[5][6]

Career

In 1993, Boyd began work for NASA at the Goddard Space Flight Center, working with the Hubble Space Telescope's High Speed Photometer Team. In 1995, she joined Goddard's X-Ray Astronomy Group, where she worked on the MOXE x-ray telescope; in 1997 she began work on the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer.[5][6] From 2003 to 2008, she managed both the Rossi facility and the Swift Science Center. She went on to work on the Kepler space telescope and its successor, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) mission.[6]

Musical project

Boyd is a member of the Chromatics, an a cappella group focused on songs about astronomy and physics. Members of the group include engineers, astronomers, and other employees from NASA. In May 1998, with the support of a NASA Initiative to Develop Education through Astronomy (IDEA) grant, the group released a 6-track CD AstroCappella[7] along with a packet of related educational materials for use by classroom teachers. They released an expanded CD, AstroCappella 2.0 in 2001, with additional teaching resources on CD-ROM. They have performed at the National Air and Space Museum, the Maryland Science Center, and in Honolulu, Las Vegas, and Orlando, Florida, among other venues.[8]

References
  1. Papadopoulos, Loukia (2018-09-19). "First 'Light Image' Captured by NASA's TESS Planet-Hunter". Interesting Engineering. Retrieved 2019-05-30.
  2. Gonzalez, Robbie (2018-04-17). "NASA's New Exoplanet Satellite Has a Better Shot of Finding Life Close to Home". Wired. ISSN 1059-1028. Retrieved 2019-05-30.
  3. Bartels, Meghan (2018-10-30). "NASA to Provide Update on Fate of Kepler Spacecraft Today: See It Live". Space.com. Retrieved 2019-05-30.
  4. Tufaro, Greg. "Metuchen High School Hall of Fame inductees honored at reception", Courier News, November 20, 2015. Accessed July 2, 2019.
  5. "Profile: Dr. Padi Boyd From Singing to Science". Imagine the Universe!. April 1997. Retrieved 2019-05-29.
  6. Garner, Rob (2016-02-01). "Dr. Patricia T. Boyd - Hubble Deputy Operations Project Scientist". NASA. Retrieved 2019-05-30.
  7. Boyd, Padi; Granger, Kara C; Smale, Alan; National Aeronautics and Space Administration (1998). AstroCappella A Musical Exploration of the Universe. Activities and Information To Accompany the AstroCappella CD. Grades 7-12. Greenbelt, MD: Goddard Space Flight Center. OCLC 1063881451.
  8. "ASP: AstroCappella - A Musical Exploration of the Universe". Universe in the Classroom. Astronomical Society of the Pacific. Summer 2001. Retrieved 2019-05-30.

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