Dr. Tracy Becker Honored with 2023 Carl Sagan Medal for Science Communication

This 12 months’s prestigious Carl Sagan Medal, often known as the “Sagan Medal” and named after the late astronomer, Dr. Carl Sagan, has been awarded to Dr. Tracy Becker, who’s a planetary scientist within the Area Science Division of the Southwest Analysis Institute (SwRI) in San Antonio, Texas. The Sagan Medal recipient is chosen by the Division for Planetary Sciences of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) and is supposed to acknowledge planetary scientists who usually are not solely lively in science communication with most people however have taken huge strides in serving to most people higher perceive, and get excited for, the sphere of planetary science.

Dr. Becker is being acknowledged because the 2023 Carl Sagan Medal recipient for her dedication to science communication in the direction of underserved communities, particularly visually and hearing-impaired college students and Spanish-speaking patrons. She beforehand took half within the American Geophysical Union’s maiden “Voices for Science” program in 2018, together with co-founding Astronomy on Tap in San Antonio, which she actively organizes. Moreover, Dr. Becker has contributed to the “Letter to a Pre-Scientist” pen pal program, SwRI’s Young Engineers and Scientists program, Skype a Scientist, served as a science advisor for the Encyclopedia Britannica for Kids, and co-hosted the “Walkabout the Galaxy” podcast.

“My ardour for communications and outreach was solidified when, as an undergraduate, I labored with center college ladies in a program centered on the position of girls in science,” Dr. Tracy Becker stated in a SwRI statement. “The multiweek program ended with an unique assembly with astronaut Dr. Sally Trip — a transformative expertise for us all.”

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Dr. Becker earned a Bachelor of Science in Astrophysics with a Minor in Latin American Research from Lehigh College in 2010 and a PhD in Physics – Planetary Sciences Monitor from the College of Central Florida in 2016. She instantly joined SwRI as a postdoctoral researcher upon commencement and have become a full analysis scientist in 2018. Her analysis pursuits embrace observing satellite tv for pc exospheres, utilizing ultraviolet reflectance observations to look at compositions of planetary surfaces, utilizing radar observations to estimate the bodily dimensions of near-Earth asteroids, and utilizing stellar occultation information to measure particle traits of Saturn’s rings.

Earlier honors and awards that Dr. Becker has obtained embrace the OPAG Early Profession Funding Award (2018) and the San Antonio Enterprise Journal 40 Below 40 (2021). She has additionally participated in a number of staff efforts, together with as a NASA Florida Area Grant Consortium Area Grant Fellow (2013), the NASA Group Achievement Award for Cassini UVIS Science Workforce (2018), and a NASA PI Launchpad Workshop attendee (2019).

“Because the day I’ve met her, I’ve recognized Tracy to be one of the crucial enthusiastic communicators of science to not solely most people, for which she has received the Carl Sagan award, but additionally amongst her friends and colleagues and particularly early profession scientists,” Dr. Kurt Retherford, who’s a Senior Program Supervisor for Analysis & Improvement at SwRI, tells Universe Right this moment. “She works more durable than anybody I do know to achieve out to underserved communities right here in San Antonio the place we dwell, in Puerto Rico the place she is carefully concerned with the Arecibo observatory neighborhood, and all over the world.”

First awarded in 1998, the standards for being awarded the Sagan Medal embrace the extent of influence the potential awardee has made with most people pertaining to speaking science, uplifting science within the views of the audiences they’ve reached, and upholding moral requirements in accordance with the AAS Code of Ethics. Earlier awardees embrace Dr. David Grinspoon (2006), Dr. Carolyn Porco (2010), and most not too long ago, Dr. Caleb Scharf (2022).

We sincerely congratulate Dr. Becker on her superb profession and the well-deserved Carl Sagan Award and stay up for watching her proceed to encourage and encourage the subsequent technology of planetary scientists within the coming years and many years!

As at all times, hold doing science & hold wanting up!