Observational astronomer, Dr. Rachel Bezanson is an Associate Professor of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Pittsburgh and member of the UNCOVER program. Dr. Bezanson earned her bachelor’s degree in astronomy from Barnard College in 2003 and her PhD from Yale. She was also awarded the Hubble Postdoctoral Fellowship from The University of Arizona in 2013 and the H.N. Russel Postdoctoral Fellowship from Princeton in 2016.
Dr. Bezanson has focused her research on the empirical studies of massive galaxies both in the early universe and today. Most recently, a research team that was co-led by Dr. Bezanson, in conjunction with the James Webb Space Telescope, published their findings on how the smallest galaxies in the early universe had emitted enough photons for reionization. The astronomers also discovered a very red, gravitational-lensed black hole in the early universe. Both findings were published in Nature this year.
Dr. Bezanson has won many awards through her research including the Cottrell Scholar Award (2021) and the NSF CAREER Grant (2022).