Fields Astronomy Discovered Kepler-186f Academic advisor Fred Adams | Doctoral advisor Fred Adams Known for Astronomy | |
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Institutions Senior Fellow at NASA Ames Research Center Alma maters University of Michigan, Grossmont College, University of California, San Diego | ||
Earth sized planets in the habitable zones of cool stars elisa quintana seti talks
Elisa Victoria Quintana is a scientist working in the field of astronomy and planetary science at NASA Ames Research Center. Her research focuses the detection and characterization of exoplanets in addition to studying how they form. She is known for the detection of Kepler 186f, the first Earth-sized planet found in the habitable zone of a star other than the Sun.
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Seti institute presents elisa quintana
Early life and education
Quintana was born in Silver City, New Mexico. Her father Leroy Quintana, is a Chicano poet and her grandfather was a miner who appeared in blacklisted movie Salt of the Earth. Aged 9 she moved to San Diego. She attended Grossmont College and transferred to the University of California at San Diego where she obtained a Bachelor of Science degree in Physics. During her time as an undergraduate Quintana worked on astrodynamics the KidSat program (later renamed EarthKAM) with first US woman astronaut Sally Ride who was a professor in San Deigo. She received Master's degrees in both Aerospace Science and Physics from the University of Michigan and earned her PhD in Physics from the University of Michigan in 2004. Her PhD thesis for on the topic of planet formation in binary star systems. Quintana was amongst the first people to study whether planets could form in the Alpha Centauri system.
Academic career
Based at NASA Ames Research Center, Quintana has been a member of the NASA Kepler Mission Team since 2006. She worked as a scientific programmer developing the Kepler pipeline for which she was awarded the NASA Software of the Year in 2010. She was part of the team that discovered the first rocky exoplanet Kepler-10b, the first exoplanet to orbit the habitable zone of another star Kepler-22b and the first Earth-sized exoplanet Kepler-20e. In 2014 she led the team that discovered Kepler-186f, an earth-sized exoplanet orbiting in the habitable zone a red dwarf star which was published in the journal Science. Quintana received the 2015 Scientist of the Year award from Great Minds in STEM for her discovery of Kepler-186f and contribution to science. More recently Quintana has been studying the frequency of giant impacts on exoplanets and comparing how their frequency compares with Earth.
Quintana is one of the few female hispanic scientist in astronomy and her contributions to the Latino community were recognized when the Los Angeles Theatre Center awarded her the 2014 Lupe Ontiveros Dream Award.