Rate My Professor Rebecca Oppenheimer

Dr. Oppenheimer is a comparative exoplanetary scientist specializing in the direct imaging and characterization of planets around other stars, brown dwarfs, and white dwarfs. Her optics laboratory at AMNH has pioneered instruments such as the most sensitive coronagraph deployed at the AEOS Telescope in 2004 and Project 1640 at Palomar Observatory in 2008, which enabled the first complete reconnaissance of the HR 8799 planetary system in 2013. She is the co-discoverer of the first brown dwarf, Gliese 229B, and performed the initial spectroscopic studies of its atmosphere. Notable publications include “Discovery of a cool brown dwarf” (Nakajima et al., Nature, 1995), “Near IR spectrum of the cool brown dwarf GL 229B” (Oppenheimer et al., Science, 1995), “Reconnaissance of the HR 8799 Exosolar System I: Near IR Spectroscopy” (Oppenheimer et al., ApJ, 2013), and contributions to the Gemini Planet Imager project. She has authored over 300 peer-reviewed papers and holds several patents. Her research has impacted the design of instruments for the James Webb Space Telescope, Roman Space Telescope, and Habitable Worlds Observatory. Awards include the Blavatnik Award for Young Scientists (2009), Hubble Fellowship, and NSF Graduate Research Fellowship. She has served on advisory committees for NASA, NSF, and international observatories.