Dr. Jennifer J. Wiseman

Dr. Jennifer Wiseman is a senior astrophysicist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, where she serves as the senior project scientist for the Hubble Space Telescope. Her primary responsibility is to ensure that the Hubble mission is as scientifically productive as possible. Previously, Wiseman headed Goddard’s Laboratory for Exoplanets and Stellar Astrophysics. She started her career at NASA in 2003 as the program scientist for Hubble and several other astrophysics missions at NASA Headquarters.

Wiseman’s scientific expertise is centered on the study of star-forming regions in our galaxy using a variety of tools, including radio, optical and infrared telescopes. She has a particular interest in dense interstellar gas cloud cores, embedded protostars, and their related outflows as active ingredients of cosmic nurseries where stars and their planetary systems are born.

As an undergraduate, Wiseman studied physics at MIT, where she discovered the comet 114P/Wiseman-Skiff. She then earned a Ph.D. in astronomy at Harvard University, and continued her research as a Jansky Fellow at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory and as a Hubble Fellow at The Johns Hopkins University.

In addition to research in astrophysics, Wiseman is also interested in science policy and public science outreach and engagement. She has served as a congressional science fellow of the American Physical Society, an elected councilor of the American Astronomical Society and a public dialogue leader for the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She enjoys giving talks on the excitement of astronomy and scientific discovery, and has appeared in many science and news venues, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, NOVA and National Public Radio.

Wiseman grew up on a small farm in the Ozark Mountains of rural Arkansas and loves animals, forests, night skies and exploring nature.