Noah Tuchow ’11 received his PhD in astronomy and astrophysics with a dual-title in astrobiology in May 2022 from Penn State, after earning his bachelor's degree in physics from the University of Chicago. He is now a postdoctoral fellow in the Exoplanets and Stellar Astrophysics Laboratory at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, working on "precursor science for the next generation of future space-based missions to directly image exoplanets." Read a NASA Early Career Scientist profile of Noah to learn more about his work.
Noah emailed us to tell us, “What first motivated me to pursue a career in astronomy was taking astrophysics electives at Bay... for my senior project, I chose to do an independent study in astrobiology. Bay School faculty helped to get me in contact with an expert from the SETI Institute, and played an active role in fostering my interest in this niche area. I just received a dual-title in astrobiology, and I can point to my time at Bay as one of the main reasons why I pursued this area of study.
“My research is helping to lay the groundwork for one of the next large flagship space telescope missions, after the recently launched James Webb Space Telescope. We are working to design a future space telescope that will be able to directly see Earth-like planets around sun-like stars. We hope that such a mission will enable us to determine whether these planets around other stars host habitable conditions or even signs of life. Such a mission wouldn't launch until around the 2040s, but it is important to do preliminary studies at this stage.”
.jpeg&command_2=resize&height_2=85 "New Science Opportunity at Bay!")
