Sarah Tuttle is an astrophysicist and assistant professor of astrophysics at the University of Washington.[1] Tuttle builds spectrographs to detect nearby galaxies, including work on VIRUS[2] (the Visible Integral-field Replicable Unit Spectrograph) installed on McDonald Observatory's Hobby–Eberly Telescope to study dark energy, and FIREBall (Faint Intergalactic medium Redshifted Emission Balloon), the world's first fiber fed ultraviolet spectrograph.[3][4][5]

Sarah Tuttle
Alma materUniversity of California, Santa Cruz
Columbia University
Scientific career
InstitutionsUniversity of Washington

Early life and education

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Tuttle was born and raised in Santa Cruz,[6] studied physics at the University of California, Santa Cruz and graduated with a B.Sc in 2001.[7] From 2001 to 2002, she worked for Add-Vision in Scotts Valley as a research scientist,[7] and was part of the team that built the first screen-printed polymer light emitting diodes.[8]

Tuttle received a M.Sc and M.Phil in astronomy from Columbia University in 2006 and 2007,[9] and obtained her Ph.D in 2010,[7] working with David Schiminovich on the Faint Intergalactic medium Redshifted Emission Balloon (FIREBall).[3][4][5] Tuttle built the world's first fiber fed ultraviolet spectrograph, which launched on FIREBall in 2009.[5][10]

Research and career

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FIREBall (Faint Intergalactic Redshifted Emission Balloon), an experiment aimed at measuring emission from the intergalactic and circumgalactic medium in the ultraviolet, during launch

Tuttle's research applies novel hardware approaches to spectrograph instrumentation design, particularly aimed to isolate star formation regulation in galaxies through emission and infall from the interstellar medium.[11]

During her Ph.D. at Columbia, Tuttle built the spectrograph for FIREBall, a balloon-borne telescope that is coupled to an ultraviolet spectrograph and designed to discover the intergalactic medium (IGM) in emission.[12][10] The FIREBall spectrograph built by Tuttle was the world's first fiber fed ultraviolet spectrograph and placed upper constraints on IGM emission.[5][10]

 
Nine of Tuttle's VIRUS spectrograph units awaiting testing for later installation on the Hobby Eberly Telescope.

Tuttle served as the lead for the Hobby–Eberly Telescope's VIRUS detector from 2010 until 2012, where she prototyped, finalized and characterized the VIRUS spectrograph.[13][14][15][16][17] The instrument consists of 156 spectroscopic channels fed by 34944 fiberoptic channels, covering a 22 arcminute field of view.[18] Tuttle and her colleagues' current astrophysics work still utilizes VIRUS data.[19]

In 2016 she joined the University of Washington as an assistant professor.[11] As of May 2019, Tuttle was leading the recommissioning of the KOSMOS spectrograph for the Apache Point Observatory, an instrument originally stationed at Kitt Peak Observatory.[11][20]

Her science-outreach work includes appearances on the podcast 365 Days of Astronomy in 2009 and writing for The Toast in 2014.[9][4][21] She regularly appears as an astronomy expert in articles in The Seattle Times, The Mercury News and Gizmodo.[22][23][24][25] In 2014, the National Academy of Sciences honored her as a Kavli Fellow.[26][27] Tuttle has also contributed to American Astronomical Society workshops and supported new guidelines to build a more diverse and inclusive environment.[28]

Activism

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Tuttle was a board member and hotline operator for the Lilith Fund until 2016, a reproductive-rights nonprofit that provides Texas women with financial support for obtaining abortions.[29][30][31] She currently serves on the board of Kadima,[32] a Seattle-based Reconstructionist Jewish community.

Her 2015 response to Tim Hunt's statements about women in the laboratory drew international coverage and was featured on BuzzFeed.[33][34] In an interview with Chanda Prescod-Weinstein during the buildup to the 2017 March for Science, The Washington Post cited a group statement by Tuttle, Prescod-Weinstein and Joseph Osmundson on The Establishment.[35][36] Their article entitled "We Are The Scientists Against A Fascist Government" called for greater participation of scientists in politics and compared the political situation in the United States to early-1930s Germany.[36]

She has produced numerous studies on the gender bias within astrophysics, including one published in Nature in 2017 which found women's 1st author papers receive 10% fewer citations than similar papers led by male 1st authors.[37] She furthermore emphasizes the importance of supporting scientists from underrepresented groups.[38]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ "Tuttle, Sarah". University of Washington.
  2. ^ Hill, Gary J.; Tuttle, Sarah E.; Vattiat, Brian L.; et al. (9 August 2016). Evans, Christopher J; Simard, Luc; Takami, Hideki (eds.). "VIRUS: first deployment of the massively replicated fiber integral field spectrograph for the upgraded Hobby-Eberly Telescope". Proceedings of SPIE. Ground-based and Airborne Instrumentation for Astronomy VI. 9908: 99081H. Bibcode:2016SPIE.9908E..1HH. doi:10.1117/12.2231064. S2CID 125982527.
  3. ^ a b "Sarah Tuttle". user.astro.columbia.edu. Archived from the original on 1 July 2018. Retrieved 2 July 2018.
  4. ^ a b c Tuttle, Sarah (27 July 2009). "July 27th: Astronomical Ballooning – Or, What Goes Up Must Come Down". 365 Days of Astronomy. Columbia University Astronomy Podcast. Archived from the original on 3 July 2018. Retrieved 2 July 2018.
  5. ^ a b c d Milliard, Bruno; Martin, D. Christopher; Schiminovich, David; Evrard, Jean; Matuszewski, Matt; Rahman, Shahinur; Tuttle, Sarah; et al. (16 July 2010). Arnaud, Monique; Murray, Stephen S; Takahashi, Tadayuki (eds.). "FIREBALL: the Faint Intergalactic medium Redshifted Emission Balloon: overview and first science flight results". Proceedings of SPIE. Space Telescopes and Instrumentation 2010: Ultraviolet to Gamma Ray. 7732: 773205. Bibcode:2010SPIE.7732E..05M. doi:10.1117/12.857850. S2CID 8060117. Archived from the original on 2 July 2018. Retrieved 2 July 2018.
  6. ^ "Introducing Sarah Tuttle". astrotweeps.wordpress.com. 21 April 2014. Archived from the original on 2 July 2018. Retrieved 2 July 2018.
  7. ^ a b c "Curriculum Vitae: Sarah Tuttle" (PDF). astrotuttle.files.wordpress.com. Archived (PDF) from the original on 3 May 2019.
  8. ^ "Screen printable electroluminescent polymer ink" (PDF). World Intellectual Property Organization. 3 July 2003. Retrieved 2 July 2018.
  9. ^ a b "Sarah Tuttle (CV)". user.astro.columbia.edu. September 2009. Archived from the original on 24 December 2018.
  10. ^ a b c Tuttle, Sarah E.; Schiminovich, David; Milliard, Bruno; et al. (9 July 2008). McLean, Ian S; Casali, Mark M (eds.). "The FIREBall fiber-fed UV spectrograph" (PDF). Proceedings of SPIE. Ground-based and Airborne Instrumentation for Astronomy II. 7014: 70141T. Bibcode:2008SPIE.7014E..1TT. doi:10.1117/12.789836. S2CID 44516391.
  11. ^ a b c "Faculty Spotlight: Sarah Tuttle". University of Washington. 6 October 2017. Archived from the original on 3 July 2018. Retrieved 2 July 2018.
  12. ^ "FIREBALL (Faint Intergalactic-medium Redshifted Emission Balloon) -2007-". stratocat.com.ar. Retrieved 6 May 2019.
  13. ^ "Update: Mass Production - HETDEX". Archived from the original on 19 September 2020. Retrieved 8 May 2019.
  14. ^ Garofali, Kirsten (9 June 2017). "Astronomy on Tap Seattle: May 24th at Peddler Brewing". Retrieved 8 May 2019.
  15. ^ Hill, Gary. "HETDEX & VIRUS: Panoramic Integral Field Spectroscopy with 35K Fibres" (PDF). Retrieved 8 May 2019.
  16. ^ "MRI: Development of VIRUS2 – A Scalable Integral Field Spectrograph for McDonald Observatory". National Science Foundation. Archived from the original on 2 July 2018. Retrieved 2 July 2018.
  17. ^ Tuttle, Sarah (2017). "The Era of 'Replicated' Spectroscopy (Colloquium)". Columbia University Department of Astronomy. Archived from the original on 20 June 2018. Retrieved 2 July 2018.
  18. ^ Tuttle, Sarah (1 August 2016). Evans, Christopher J; Simard, Luc; Takami, Hideki (eds.). "VIRUS early installation and commissioning". Ground-Based and Airborne Instrumentation for Astronomy VI. 9908: 99081I. Bibcode:2016SPIE.9908E..1IT. doi:10.1117/12.2231253. S2CID 124054930.
  19. ^ Tuttle, Sarah (2012). "HETDEX: Diffuse Lyman-Alpha Emission". American Astronomical Society Meeting Abstracts #219. 219: 424.23. Bibcode:2012AAS...21942423T.
  20. ^ Tran, Debby; Tuttle, Sarah; McKay, Myles; Kadlec, Kal; Sayres, Conor (2019). "NASA/ADS". American Astronomical Society Meeting Abstracts #233. 233: 146.07. Bibcode:2019AAS...23314607T.
  21. ^ Tuttle, Sarah (9 October 2014). "Gal Science: On Working With Dark Energy". The Toast. Retrieved 3 May 2019.
  22. ^ "Experts answer your burning questions about the 2017 solar eclipse". Seattle Times. 16 August 2017. Retrieved 3 May 2019.
  23. ^ Guzman, Kara (9 August 2017). "In the shadow of the moon: Jay Friedland, Santa Cruz's total eclipse chaser". Mercury News. Retrieved 3 May 2019.
  24. ^ Mandelbaum, Ryan F. (23 July 2018). "Our Neighbor Andromeda May Have Cannibalized Another Galaxy". Gizmodo. Retrieved 3 May 2019.
  25. ^ Mandelbaum, Ryan F. (28 March 2018). "Holy Crap, This Galaxy Has No Dark Matter". Retrieved 3 May 2019.
  26. ^ "Distinguished Young Scientists Selected to Participate in Kavli Frontiers of Science Symposia". National Academy of Sciences. 23 January 2015. Retrieved 3 May 2019.
  27. ^ "Sarah Tuttle". National Academy of Sciences. Retrieved 3 May 2019.
  28. ^ Brinkworth, Carolyn; Skaer, Allison Byrd; Prescod-Weinstein, Chanda; Teske, Johanna; Tuttle, Sarah (5 October 2016). "Building an Inclusive AAS – The Critical Role of Diversity and Inclusion Training for AAS Council and Astronomy Leadership". arXiv:1610.02916 [astro-ph.IM].
  29. ^ Villeneuve, Marina (25 August 2013). "Raising money to ensure women have access to abortions". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 3 May 2019.
  30. ^ Tuma, Mary (15 August 2014). "How Not to 'Stop Patriarchy'". Austin Chronicle. Retrieved 3 May 2019.
  31. ^ Klabusich, Katie (14 August 2014). ""Are the white women wearing actual chains?": Meet the abortion rights group Texas feminists oppose". Salon. Retrieved 3 May 2019.
  32. ^ "Kadima Home". Kadima Reconstructionist Community. Retrieved 6 May 2019.
  33. ^ Wheaton, Oliver (11 June 2015). "Female astrophysicist has a MASSIVE rant about Tim Hunt's 'bulls*** misogyny'". Metro. Retrieved 4 May 2019.
  34. ^ Silver, Laura (11 June 2015). "This Astrophysicist Just Delivered The Perfect Response To Tim Hunt's Sexist Comments". BuzzFeed. Retrieved 4 May 2019.
  35. ^ Kaplan, Sarah (3 February 2017). "Scientists plan to march on Washington — but where will it get them?". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on 4 February 2017.
  36. ^ a b Prescod-Weinstein, Chanda; Tuttle, Sarah; Osmundson, Joseph (2 February 2017). "We Are The Scientists Against A Fascist Government". The Establishment. Archived from the original on 4 May 2018. Retrieved 2 July 2018.
  37. ^ Tuttle, Sarah (2 June 2017). "Astronomical community: The power of being counted". Nature Astronomy. 1 (6): 0154. Bibcode:2017NatAs...1E.154T. doi:10.1038/s41550-017-0154. S2CID 126024222.
  38. ^ "Sarah Tuttle (@niais) | Twitter". twitter.com. Retrieved 6 May 2019.