Nia Imara

Nia Imara is an American astrophysicist, artist, and activist. Imara was involved in work that deals with galactic mass, star formation and detecting exoplanets. Imara was the first African-American woman to earn a PhD in astrophysics at the University of California, Berkeley[1] and was the inaugural postdoctoral fellow in the Future Faculty Leaders program at Harvard University.[2]

Nia Imara
Born
East Oakland, Oakland, California
Alma materKenyon College
University of California, Berkeley
Known forScience and art
Scientific career
InstitutionsUC Santa Cruz
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
ThesisThe Formation and Evolution of Giant Molecular Clouds (2010)
Doctoral advisorLeo Blitz
Websiteniaimara.com

Early life and education

Imara was born in East Oakland, Oakland, California and grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area.[3] She received her bachelor's degree from Kenyon College in 2003,[4] majoring in mathematics and physics.[3] While at Kenyon College, she competed on the college's swim team.[5] She moved to the University of California, Berkeley for her postgraduate studies, and in 2010 she became the first African-American woman to earn a PhD in astrophysics at University of California, Berkeley.[3] Her dissertation was on The Formation and Evolution of Giant Molecular Clouds and was supervised by Leo Blitz.[6]

Career

From 2014 to 2017, Imara was the inaugural postdoctoral fellow in the Future Faculty Leaders program at Harvard University. Her postdoctoral research focused on giant molecular clouds, the birth sites of stars, and the properties and cosmological effects of galactic and intergalactic dust.[2] She used the world's largest fully steerable radio telescope, the Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope, to conduct her research.[3]

In 2017, she was appointed as the John Harvard Distinguished Science Fellow and the Harvard FAS Dean's Postdoctoral Fellow at the Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.[7] Imara works with the Banneker Institute at Harvard, and is a member of the Breakthrough Starshot research team.[8][9] Her work investigates the structure and evolution of stellar nurseries in both the Milky Way Galaxy and other galaxies throughout the universe,[10] and she has developed a model that connects galaxy mass, star formation rates and dust temperatures.[11]

Together with Rosanne Di Stefano, Imara has proposed a method for detecting exoplanets in X-ray binary star systems.[12]

In Fall 2020, Imara joined the faculty in the Astronomy and Astrophysics Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Art

Imara is a self-taught painter whose primary medium is oil on canvas.[13] From 2011 to 2014 she exhibited her work, along with the work of other artists local to the San Francisco Bay Area, at her gallery named First Love in Oakland, California.[14]

In 2015 Imara presented an art exhibit titled Lumiphilia and began a multi-media project titled Generation of Oakland: The People's Portrait, in her hometown of Oakland, California.[3] The Generation of Oakland project used interviews and photographs to examine the impact of gentrification on Oakland residents and their families.[1][13][15] These interviews with people affected by gentrification, accompanied by their photographs, are viewable online at GenerationOfOakland.com.[16][17]

Activism

Imara is an advocate for equity in STEM. She founded the Equity and Inclusion Journal Club at Harvard University in 2018 which was originally co-organized with Dr. Anna Pancoast.[18] She has visited South Africa and Ghana to teach and advocate in programs designed to increase diversity in astronomy and other STEM areas.[19][20]

References
  1. Burt, Cecily (November 4, 2015). "Oakland: Help record your experience with gentrification". The Mercury News. Oakland, CA: Bay Area News Group. Archived from the original on May 3, 2019. Retrieved May 3, 2019.
  2. "Harvard Future Faculty Leaders Postdoctoral Fellowship". www.cfa.harvard.edu. Retrieved 2020-09-13.
  3. Kumamoto, Akira Olivia (November 16, 2015). "Nia Imara sheds light on Oakland through art". Oakland North. UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. Retrieved May 3, 2019.
  4. "Before the Stars · Along Middle Path". www.kenyon.edu. Retrieved 2020-09-13.
  5. "Nia Imara sheds light on Oakland through art". Oakland North. Retrieved 2020-09-13.
  6. Imara, Nia (2010). The Formation and Evolution of Giant Molecular Clouds (Thesis). UC Berkeley.
  7. "John Harvard Distinguished Science Fellows (JHDSF) Program: Current Fellows". President and Fellows of Harvard College. Retrieved May 2, 2018.
  8. Sokol, Joshua (August 23, 2016). "Why the Universe Needs More Black and Latino Astronomers". Smithsonian. Retrieved May 3, 2019.
  9. "Breakthrough Initiatives". breakthroughinitiatives.org. Retrieved May 2, 2018.
  10. "about". www.cfa.harvard.edu. Retrieved 2020-09-13.
  11. Imara, Nia; Loeb, Abraham; Johnson, Benjamin D.; Conroy, Charlie; Behroozi, Peter (February 8, 2018). "A Model Connecting Galaxy Masses, Star Formation Rates, and Dust Temperatures Across Cosmic Time". The Astrophysical Journal. 854 (1): 36. arXiv:1801.01499. Bibcode:2018ApJ...854...36I. doi:10.3847/1538-4357/aaa3f0. ISSN 1538-4357.
  12. Kohler, Susanna (2018-07-20). "Searching for exoplanets around X-ray binaries". AAS Nova. American Astronomical Society. Retrieved 2019-05-03.
  13. Voynovskaya, Nastia (November 11, 2015). "Nia Imara Captures the Faces of Oakland's Housing Crisis". Arts & Culture. East Bay Express. Retrieved May 3, 2019.
  14. Ali, Nancy Alima (May 21, 2015). "May 21st: On Being an Artist and Astronomer". 365 Days of Astronomy. Planetary Science Institute. Retrieved May 3, 2019.
  15. "Oakland artist and astronomer to highlight impacts of gentrification". The Mercury News. East Oakland, CA: Bay Area News Group. November 6, 2015. Archived from the original on May 3, 2019. Retrieved May 3, 2019.
  16. Piaña, Rayanne. "'Generation of Oakland' Documents Impacts of Displacement Through Touching Interviews". East Bay Express. Retrieved 4 May 2019.
  17. "GENERATION OF OAKLAND". Archived from the original on 2019-01-24. Retrieved 4 May 2019.
  18. "The Equity and Inclusion Journal Club". President and Fellows of Harvard College. Retrieved May 3, 2019.
  19. National Research Council, Policy and Global Affairs, Committee on Women in Science, Engineering, and Medicine, Committee on Advancing Institutional Transformation for Minority Women in Academia (2013). Seeking Solutions: Maximizing American Talent by Advancing Women of Color in Academia: Summary of a Conference. National Academies Press. ISBN 9780309295949. Retrieved 5 May 2019.CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  20. Appah, Samuel Obeng (9 February 2019). "Year of Return: Ghana begins celebration of Black History Month with launch". VoyagesAfriq. Retrieved 5 May 2019.
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