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Dr. John Wu, an assistant astronomer at Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) and associate research scientist at The Johns Hopkins University (JHU) in Baltimore, Maryland, is the recipient of the Maryland Academy of Sciences' 2024 Outstanding Young Scientist award.

Using machine-learning methods that he developed, Dr. Wu has pioneered the discovery of low-mass galaxy candidates and contributed to theoretical models of galaxies, dark matter halos, and their cosmic surroundings. The algorithms are used to process astronomical imaging data at the pixel scale to understand how galaxy appearances are governed by their growth and evolution.

Wu began his tenure-track assistant astronomer position at STScI in 2022. He first joined STScI as a postdoctoral researcher in 2020, prior to which he was a postdoctoral researcher at JHU in 2019. He previously earned his PhD in physics and astronomy at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey in 2019, and his BSc in physics and astrophysics at Carnegie Mellon University in 2013.

This photo of Dr. Wu was taken near Cape Town, South Africa.