Marc Postman
As the interim deputy director of the institute, Dr. Marc Postman works collaboratively with the interim director to lead the institute as a whole and advance the institute’s objectives. He provides leadership and vision for all of our activities and champions a science-driven approach to support our missions and the communities we serve.
Dr. Postman previously served as the chair of the institute’s science staff, where he worked to support research productivity by advocating for the needs of our researchers. From late 2019 to 2022, he sought ways to maintain the scientific environment during the challenges posed by the pandemic, helped establish new initiatives to support researchers, implemented policies to ensure diversity and inclusion on key STScI science committees, expanded access to science staff meetings, and consulted with the research staff to involve the institute in a number of exciting research initiatives. From 2005 to 2019, Dr. Postman led the community missions office, where he guided the institute’s role in providing science operations support for a number of ground- and space-based observatories that are led by independent astronomical groups in partnership with STScI. During that period, he and his staff helped STScI acquire key roles in supporting NASA’s Kepler, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, and Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) missions and broadened the range of new initiatives that STScI pursues.
Dr. Postman’s primary research interest has been the formation and evolution of structure in the universe, from galaxies to the largest superclusters. He was a member of the science investigation team for the Advanced Camera for Surveys instrument that was deployed on the Hubble Space Telescope in 2002. From 2010 to 2017, Dr. Postman lead an international team of researchers to conduct a 525-orbit survey with the Hubble telescope to study dark matter in galaxy clusters and to detect some of the most distant galaxies in the universe. He is an observational astronomer and has used a wide range of telescopes on the ground and in space, covering the electromagnetic spectrum from radio and infrared to ultraviolet and X-rays.
Dr. Postman was the principal investigator for a NASA concept study on the next generation space telescope known as ATLAST and a team member of a follow-on NASA study for the Large Ultraviolet Optical Infrared Surveyor, called LUVOIR. LUVOIR will be able to search for and detect signs of life in the atmospheres of dozens of exoplanets and will be able to probe individual structures as small as 100 solar masses out to z=10. Dr. Postman served on the initial Roman Space Telescope science definition team and on one of its formulation science working groups. Dr. Postman has published over 195 refereed research articles and holds the title of Distinguished Astronomer.
Education:
PhD in Astronomy, Harvard University
SB in Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Science/Research Interests:
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Evolution of massive galaxies
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Galaxy cluster distribution
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Galaxy properties
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Observational cosmology
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The origin and evolution of large-scale structure in the universe
Research Topics: High-Redshift Galaxies; Galaxy Groups and Clusters; Galaxy Formation and Evolution; Dark Matter; Large-scale Structure
Professional Websites:
ORCID ID: 0000-0002-9365-7989