Profile Details
Dr. Laura L. Watkins is the head of the science policy division at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), where she is responsible for leading the development and implementation of external policies for the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), and the upcoming Nancy Roman Space Telescope in collaboration with each telescope’s mission office. She also oversees the HST and JWST telescope allocation committees, Director’s Discretionary Time programs, and the HST and JWST User Committees. She is also an ESA-AURA astronomer at the institute.
From 2019 to 2024, Dr. Watkins served in the institute’s science mission office, most recently as its the deputy mission head, where she led the science policies group for HST and JWST. While contributing to this office, she also organized the postdoc mentoring program, organized the Prize and STScI fellowship selection committees, and served on the executive committee for Space Astronomy Summer Program.
Before this, Dr. Watkins was a fellow at the University of Vienna in Austria, and both a fellow at the European Southern Observatory in Germany. She first joined STScI in 2013 as a postdoc contributing to the High-resolution Space Telescope Proper Motion Collaboration (HSTPROMO) research group. She began her career in 2010 as a postdoc at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Germany.
Her primary research interests are the spatial and velocity distributions of small stellar systems, both internal and global, and what they can tell us about their formation, evolution, and present state. Dr. Watkins studies the kinematics using proper motions from HST, Gaia and JWST, and uses dynamical models to connect the observations to the underlying physics. With this research, she aims to investigate the properties, structure, and formation history of galaxies and stellar clusters. She also works with simulated systems to test models and inform future observations. Dr. Watkins is particularly interested in the globular clusters of the Milky Way, but has broader interests in nearby dwarf galaxies, and both the globular cluster and dwarf galaxy systems in the Local Group. She is still a member of the HSTPROMO group.
Dr. Watkins has led and contributed to several of theory and observing programs with HST, JWST, and the Very Large Telescope in Chile. She publishes as lead author and co-author in the Astrophysical Journal, the Astronomical Journal, Astronomy & Astrophysics, Experimental Astronomy, and the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. She is a member of the International Astronomical Union, the American Astronomical Society (AAS), and the AAS Division on Dynamical Astronomy.
Education:
PhD in Astronomy, University of Cambridge
MA in Natural Sciences, University of Cambridge
MSci in Natural Sciences, University of Cambridge
Science Interests:
- Internal kinematics of globular clusters
- Discrete dynamical modelling, particularly Jeans models
- Proper-motion measurements from Hubble and Gaia
- Mass profiles of dwarf galaxies
- Globular clusters and dwarf galaxies as tracers of their host galaxies
Research Topics: Local Group Galaxies, Star Clusters, Resolved Stellar Populations, Astrometry, Dark Matter, Dynamical Modelling, Globular Clusters, Proper Motions, Stellar Kinematics
Professional Website: Dr. Laura L. Watkins
ORCID ID: 0000-0002-1343-134X