Announcing the Astro2020 Steering Committee

This post is adapted from an email sent by the National Academies:

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) have announced the members of the steering committee for the Decadal Survey on Astronomy and Astrophysics (Astro2020). The role of the steering committee is to lead a community-based process to identify and prioritize leading-edge scientific questions and the ways to answer them. Members of the steering committee were selected for their scientific and technical expertise and breadth and their proven ability to provide objective, consensus-based advice. (The co-chairs were announced in November 2018.)

• Fiona A. Harrison, California Institute of Technology, Co-Chair
• Robert C. Kennicutt, Jr., University of Arizona and Texas A&M University, Co-Chair
• Julianne Dalcanton, University of Washington
• Pieter van Dokkum, Yale University
• Andrew S. Driesman, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory
• Jonathan J. Fortney, University of California, Santa Cruz
• Gabriela González, Louisiana State University
• Jordan A. Goodman, University of Maryland
• Marc P. Kamionkowski, Johns Hopkins University
• Bruce A. Macintosh, Stanford University
• Jacobus M. Oschmann, International Society for Optics and Photonics
• Rachel A. Osten, Space Telescope Science Institute
• Lyman A. Page, Jr., Princeton University
• Eliot Quataert, University of California, Berkeley
• Wanda A. Sigur, Lockheed Martin, retired
• Rachel Somerville, Rutgers University
• Keivan G. Stassun, Vanderbilt University
• Jean L. Turner, University of California, Los Angeles
• Tim de Zeeuw, Leiden University
• Ellen G. Zweibel, University of Wisconsin, Madison

Read the Steering Committee Member Biographies

As noted on the NASEM project website, appointments made to the Astro2020 steering committee are provisional, and changes may be made. No appointment shall be considered final until the National Academies have evaluated relevant information bearing on the committee's composition and balance. This information will include confidential written disclosures to the National Academies by each member-designate concerning potential sources of bias and conflict of interest pertaining to his or her service on the committee; information from discussion of the committee's composition and balance that is conducted in closed session at its first event and again whenever its membership changes; and any public comments that NASEM receives on the membership during the 20-calendar day formal public comment period. If additional members are appointed to this committee, an additional 20-calendar day formal public comment period will be allowed. It is through this process that the National Academies determine whether the committee contains the requisite expertise to address its task and whether the points of views of individual members are adequately balanced such that the committee as a whole can address its charge objectively.

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