Cosmic Origins Second Early Career Workshop

NASA’s Cosmic Origins Program is excited to invite you to the second Early Career Workshop, designed to support and empower the next generation of astrophysics leaders and PIs. The workshop aims to provide insights to early career scientists about the wide range of work done in the Cosmic Origins Program, to explain and demonstrate the tools and opportunities available to them, and to answer any questions they may have.

Cosmic Origins

Location

Virtual

Dates

20-22 October 2026
1:00pm - 4:30pm ET

Community

Cosmic Origins

Type

Workshop

Cosmic Origins Community

To Support and Empower the Next Generation of Astrophysicists

This workshop will take place virtually on October 20 – 22, 2026, from 1:00pm – 4:30 pm Eastern.

The deadline for abstract submission is October 10.

The Pillars of Creation. Wispy silhouettes of three columns against a dark, star-filled background.

A Near-Infrared View of the Pillars of Creation. This NASA Hubble Space Telescope image, taken in near-infrared light, transforms the pillars into eerie, wispy silhouettes, which are seen against a background of myriad stars. The near-infrared light can penetrate much of the gas and dust, revealing stars behind the nebula as well as hidden away inside the pillars. Some of the gas and dust clouds are so dense that even the near-infrared light cannot penetrate them. New stars embedded in the tops of the pillars, however, are apparent as bright sources that are unseen in the visible image. The ghostly bluish haze around the dense edges of the pillars is material getting heated up by the intense ultraviolet radiation from a cluster of young, massive stars and evaporating away into space. The stellar grouping is above the pillars and cannot be seen in the image.

NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)

Plenary Speakers

Day 1

Dr. John C. Mather is a Senior Astrophysicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center specializing in infrared astronomy and cosmology. He won the 2006 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) satellite, which proved the cosmic microwave background radiation has a nearly perfect blackbody spectrum. Since 1995, he has served as Senior Project Scientist for the James Webb Space Telescope. Throughout his career, he has also served on advisory boards for the National Academy of Sciences, NASA, and the NSF.

Day 2

Shawn Domagal-Goldman is the Astrophysics Division Director at NASA HQ and former Deputy Director of the Sciences and Exploration Directorate at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. An astrobiologist by training, his research applies an interdisciplinary approach to assess exoplanet habitability and define standards of evidence for biosignatures. He plays a key role in the Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO), a flagship space telescope concept designed to search for life beyond our solar system. Previously, he helped lay the groundwork for HWO by serving on the science leadership teams for both the HabEx and LUVOIR mission concepts.

Day 3

Dr. Jane Rigby is the Senior Project Scientist for the James Webb Space Telescope, providing the leadership necessary to ensure the mission meets its scientific goals. With a Ph.D. in astronomy from the University of Arizona, her research focuses on galaxy evolution, star-forming galaxies, and active galactic nuclei. She has published over 140 peer-reviewed papers utilizing premier observatories like Hubble, Keck, and Magellan. Also an American Astronomical Society (AAS) trustee, Rigby is highly recognized for her research, mentorship, and advocacy, with honors including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the NASA Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal, and the Explorers Club Citation of Merit.

Workshop Schedule

Cosmic Origins Science - Day 1 (Tuesday, 20 October)

Session Recording

Time	Topic	Speaker	Presentations
1:00‑1:10 PM	Cosmic Origins Opening	Sabrina Steirwalt Occidental College	[PDF]
1:10‑1:40 PM	From Pencils to AI, New Tools for Astronomy	Dr. John Mather NASA	[PDF]
1:45‑2:00 PM	Little Red Dots on FIRE: Exploring the Formation and Observational Signatures of Ultra-Compact Early Galaxies	Niranjan Chandra Roy University of Connecticut	[PDF]
2:00‑2:15 PM	From N-body Boxes to Hα Emitters: a Fast, Non-Repeating Light Cone for Euclid and Roman Deep Fields	Sujatha Ramakrishnan ICE-CSIC	[PDF]
2:15‑2:30 PM	What's Up With These Winds: A MAGIC Story	Brad Koplitz Arizona State University	[PDF]
2:30‑2:45 PM	Probing Primordial Non-Gaussianity With the SPHEREx Mission	Yun-Ting Cheng CalTech	[PDF]
2:45‑3:00 PM	Deep Multiwavelength Constraints on the Host Galaxies and Black-Hole Growth of Dwarf AGNs	Wei Leong Tee Penn State University	[PDF]
2:50‑3:00 PM	Break
3:00‑3:15 PM	Metal and Dust Content of Absorption-Selected Gas-Rich Galaxies	Mitchell Halley University of South Carolina	[PDF]
3:15‑3:30 PM	Where Ideas Come From: The Creative Process of Writing a Scientific Proposal	Dr. Peter Kurczynski NASA/GSFC	[PDF]
3:30‑3:35 PM	Panel Intro: Understanding the Little Red Dots	Erini Lambrides NASA/GSFC
3:35‑4:00 PM	Follow-Up Panel: Understanding The Little Red Dots	Moderator: Erini Lambrides Panelists: Rohan Naidu Emmanuel Durodola Jenny Greene
4:00‑4:10 PM	Day 1 Closing	Cosmic Origins Team	[PDF]

Missions and Technology - Day 2 (Wednesday, 21 October)

Session Recording

Time	Topic	Speaker	Presentations
1:00‑1:30 PM	NASA Astrophysics Portfolio: The Role of Early-Careers in Future Missions	Shawn Domagal-Goldman NASA HQ
1:35‑1:50 PM	The Role of Mergers & Environments Affecting Halo Morphology and Morphology-dependent Clustering	Ayan Nanda National Institute of Science Education & Research
1:50‑2:05 PM	Differentiating Direct and Preventative AGN Jet Feedback Via Stellar Wind Mass-Loading	Talia M. O'Shea University of Wisconsin-Madison	[PDF]
2:05‑2:20 PM	Discovery of Weak O VI Absorption in Underdense Regions of the Low-Redshift Intergalactic Medium	Sapna Mishra STScI	[PDF]
2:20‑2:35 PM	Automating Stellar Variability: Implementing Photometric Time-Series Pipelines for Variable Star Classification	Kavya Chaudhari Silver Oak University	[PDF]
2:35‑2:50 PM	A Hunt for Missing Metals, Baryons, and Energy in the Circumgalactic Medium	Sanskriti Das Standford University	[PDF]
2:50‑3:00 PM	Break
3:00‑3:30 PM	Cosmic Pathfinders Leadership Q/A	CPP Leadership Council Moderator: Ron Gamble
3:30‑3:35 PM	Panel Intro: From Ideas to the Launch Pad: What's in Your Skills Tree?	Erika Hamden University of Arizona
3:35‑4:00 PM	Follow-Up Panel: From Ideas to the Launch Pad: What's in Your Skills Tree?	Moderator: Erika Hamden
4:00‑4:10 PM	Day 2 Closing	Cosmic Origins Team

Careers - Day 3 (Thursday, 22 October)

Session Recording

Time	Topic	Speaker	Presentations
1:00‑1:30 PM	Career Pathway to JWST Project Scientist	Jane Rigby NASA/GSFC
1:35‑1:50 PM	Tracing r-process Enrichment from Binary Neutron-Star Mergers in Cosmological Simulations	Rajdeep Vinayaraj Cardiff University	[PDF]
1:50‑2:05 PM	Decoding Supermassive Black Holes in the Time Domain: The EBBY/FLOW Framework for Accretion, Variability, and Feedback	Alaa Salah Afifi Keplar Space University
2:05‑2:20 PM	A Novel High-Precision Distance Measurement to a z > 2 Type Ia Supernova Using JWST	Anousha Greiveldinger UC Berkeley, Lawrence Berkeley National Lab	[PDF]
2:20‑2:35 PM	Physics-Informed Quantum Control for Memory-Assisted Astronomical Interferometry	Natasha Costa Federal University of Rio de Janeiro	[PDF]
2:35‑2:50 PM	Astrophysics and General Relativity within the Vierbein Formalism	Mohamed Aris Kellou Oran 1 University	[PDF]
2:50‑3:00 PM	Break
3:00‑3:15 PM	The Study of Interstellar Dust in Distant Galaxies with JWST	Viacheslav Klimenko University of South Carolina	[PDF]
3:15‑3:30 PM	Extreme Starbursts and the First Stars: Mapping Galaxy Evolution with the James Webb Space Telescope's Medium Bands	Sunna Withers York University, Canada	[PDF]
3:30‑4:00 PM	Day 3 Closing	Cosmic Origins Team
4:30 PM	END

Join the Workshop

Workshop Science Organizing Committee

Sabrina Stierwalt
Peter Kurczynski
Swara Ravindranath
Ronald Gamble
Avrajit Bandyopadhyay

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