Profile Details
As the chair of the institute’s science staff, Dr. Christine Chen works to strengthen STScI’s research productivity by advocating for the needs of our researchers. She monitors the use of research-enabling resources, oversees the peer mentoring program, seeks ways to enhance the scientific environment, and consults with research staff to guide the institute toward exciting research initiatives.
Dr. Chen has served as an astronomer at the institute since 2024. She joined STScI as an assistant astronomer in 2008 and was promoted to associate astronomer with tenure in 2015. She is also a research scientist in the Johns Hopkins University Physics (JHU) and physics and astronomy department. She joined JHU as an associate research scientist in 2015. Dr. Chen is an active mentor. She has advised more than two dozen postdocs, graduate students, undergrads, and high school students since 2004.
Her previous roles at the institute include work as the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) Science Policy Group (SPG) lead from 2020 to 2024. The JWST SPG issues General Observer (GO) and Director's Discretionary (DD) Calls for Proposals to the astronomical community to conduct research using JWST and organizes Dual Anonymous Peer Review of the proposals submitted by the astronomical community. From 2017 to 2018, she served as JWST’s deputy Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) team lead. The year before that, she was the deputy JWST project scientist.
As a researcher, Dr. Chen has authored more than 120 peer-reviewed publications. She is interested in using multiwavelength observations to elucidate the properties of dust in debris disks (e.g., grain size, porosity, shape, and composition). Debris disks are exoplanetary systems that contain not only planets but also minor body belts, which are analogous to the asteroid and Kuiper Belts in our solar system. Detailed characterization of the dust can shed light on how exoplanetary systems form and evolve. From 2015 to 2022, she led an international team of astronomers using the Gemini Planet Imager on the Gemini South Telescope to better characterize the starlight reflected from debris dust. From 2008 to 2015, she contributed as a member of the JWST Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) Guaranteed Time Observer (GTO) team.
Before joining the institute, Dr. Chen was a Spitzer postdoctoral fellow at the National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO), a NOAO postdoctoal fellow at the NASA Life and Planets Astrobiology Center, and a National Research Council Resident research associate at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. While a postdoc working with the Spitzer Infrared Spectrograph (IRS) Disks Team, she was the first researcher to model the mid-infrared thermal emission for large numbers of debris disks using the IRS.
Throughout her career, Dr. Chen has served as a reviewer for NASA Research Opportunities in Space and Earth Science (ROSES) calls for proposals; the time allocation process for NASA WIYN in Arizona, the W.M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii, and the Spitzer Science Center; and the fellow selection process for the Hubble, Sagan, and Giacconi Fellowships. She is a member of the American Astronomical Society (AAS), the Astronomical Society of the Pacific (ASP), and International Astronomical Union (IAU).
Education:
PhD in Astronomy, University of California, Los Angeles
MS in Astronomy, University of California, Los Angeles
BS in Physics, California Institute of Technology
Research Topics: Dust; Exoplanets
Professional Website: Christine Chen
ORCID ID: 0000-0002-8382-0447