Regina Caputo headshot, female, brown medium-length hair, black shirt, red sweater smile.

Regina Caputo

Astrophysicist

Education

  • Ph.D. (2011) • Physics • Stony Brook University
  • B.Sc. (2006) • Engineering Physics • Colorado School of Mines

Current Position

  • Research Astrophysicist at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
  • Research interests include multimessenger astrophysics, dark matter, high-energy astrophysics, gamma-ray mission and MAPS development.
  • Current Observatory Project Scientist for the Neil Geherls Swift Observatory, PI of AstroPix, ComPair-2 and AMEGO-X, Project Manager for ComPair


Top left: A stack of three circuit boards with gold connectors surrounding it. The AstroPix chips sit in the middle mounted to each of the circuit boards. This is the A-STEP payload. Bottom left: a CAD model of the A-STEP payload which consists of a sliver cube and cut away to reveal 3 green layers which represent the AstroPix chips mounted to a circuit board. Right: Image of a sounding rocket taking off.

Technology Interests

  • Monolithic CMOS Silicon Pixel detectors (bottom right)
  • Next generation gamma-ray telescopes
  • Large format particle tracking detectors

Goals and Aspirations

  • Design, build and test prototype gamma-ray instruments on balloon and sounding rocket platforms (left bottom)
  • Build a next generation gamma-ray observatory to succeed the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope which will enable multimessenger astrophysics and support the high-energy community
  • Support, promote, and mentor junior scientists on my teams especially postdocs and graduate students
  • Outreach to the public about the awesome work done at NASA