Community Corner
Concord Resident Earns Genius Grant
MIT astrophysicist Sara Seager was one of three Boston area academics to win MacArthur Genius Grants.
For reaching beyond the stars in search of exoplanets, a local woman has been named a "genius."
MIT astrophysicist Sara Seager was one of three Boston area academics to win MacArthur Genius Grants, the Globe reported.
Seager -- who Concordians may recognize from her 2010 Hub Lecture at Middlesex School, her appearances on the History Channel's Ancient Aliens -- joins local winners MIT computer scientist Dina Katabi and Boston College historian Robin Fleming, according to the Globe.
According to her website, Seager is a Professor of Planetary Science and Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Seager studies exoplanet, and is particularly interested in the search for planets like Earth with signs of life on them, her website says.
“There is absolutely an Earth twin out there, somewhere, we just don’t know exactly where,” says Seager in a MacArthur Fellow profile, which you can watch by clicking here or on the video above.
Seager is one of 24 MacArthur Fellows for 2013, according to the foundation, which describes her as an "astrophysicist adapting fundamental maxims of existing planetary science to create a comprehensive theoretical framework for determining the characteristics of planets beyond our solar system."According to its website:
The MacArthur Fellows Program awards unrestricted $625,000 fellowships to talented individuals who have shown extraordinary originality and dedication in their creative pursuits and a marked capacity for self-direction.
Seager, in her MacArthur interview, said she hopes the MacArthur fellowship "will open up doors for me and give me a platform to speak to the world.”
“I am disappointed to still be oftentimes the only woman in a room of engineers and physicists," Seager said in the interview. "There are still far too women in the physical sciences, as there should be compared to efforts put forward to get young women interested and maintain them in the field.
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