Emily Levesque

Levesque grew up in Taunton, Massachusetts.{{Cite web|url=http://depts.washington.edu/astron/spotlight/faculty-spotlight-emily-levesque/|title=Faculty Spotlight: Emily Levesque|access-date=2016-06-15}} She received her undergraduate degree in physics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2006, followed by a PhD in astronomy at the University of Hawaii in 2010.{{Cite web|url=http://depts.washington.edu/astron/profile/levesque-emily/|title=Levesque, Emily – Department of Astronomy|access-date=2016-06-15}}{{Cite web |title=Alumni (alphabetical listing) |url=https://www2.ifa.hawaii.edu/gradprog/alumni.htm |access-date=2024-04-05 |website=University of Hawaii Institute for Astronomy}}

From 2010 to 2015, Levesque was a postdoctoral researcher at University of Colorado as an Einstein Fellow from 2010 to 2013, and then received a Hubble Fellowship from 2013 to 2015.{{Cite web|url=http://www.stsci.edu/institute/smo/fellowships/hubble/fellows-list/|title=Listing of all Hubble Fellows 1990–2016|access-date=2016-06-15}}{{Cite web|url=http://cxc.harvard.edu/fellows/allFellowsList.html|title=Einstein, Chandra, and Fermi Fellows|access-date=2016-06-15}} She has been an assistant professor in the Department of Astronomy at the University of Washington since 2015.

In 2015, Levesque, Rachel Bezanson, and Grant R. Tremblay wrote a preprint which critiqued the use of the Physics GRE as an admissions cutoff criterion for US astronomy postgraduate programs, by showing there was no statistical correlation between applicant's score and later success in their academic careers.{{cite arXiv |eprint=1512.03709 |class=physics.ed-ph |first1=Emily M. |last1=Levesque |first2=Rachel |last2=Bezanson |title=Physics GRE Scores of Prize Postdoctoral Fellows in Astronomy |date=2015-12-10 |last3=Tremblay |first3=Grant R.}}{{Cite news |date=2016-09-09 |title=The impact of the Physics GRE in astronomy graduate admissions |url=https://astrobites.org/2016/09/09/the-impact-of-the-physics-gre-in-astronomy-graduate-admissions/ |access-date=2017-03-30 |work=Astrobites |language=en-US}} Subsequently, the American Astronomical Society adopted the stance that the Physics GRE should not be mandatory for graduate school applications,{{Cite web |title=President's Column: Rethinking the Role of the GRE {{!}} American Astronomical Society |url=https://aas.org/posts/news/2015/12/presidents-column-rethinking-role-gre |access-date=2017-03-30 |website=aas.org |language=en}}{{Cite web |title=Some Astronomy programs dropping Physics GRE requirement – Physics GRE Discussion Forums |url=http://www.physicsgre.com/viewtopic.php?t=6468 |access-date=2017-03-30 |website=www.physicsgre.com |language=en-gb}} and many graduate astronomy programs have since removed the Physics GRE as a required part of their graduate school applications.

file:mukyv354.png, Mu Cephei, KY Cygni, and V354 Cephei according to Emily Levesque's publication{{cite journal

| arxiv = astro-ph/0504337

| bibcode = 2005ApJ...628..973L

| date = 2005

| doi = 10.1086/430901

| first1 = Emily M.

| first2 = Philip

| first3 = K. A. G.

| first4 = Bertrand

| first5 = Eric

| first6 = Andre

| issn = 0004-637X

| issue = 2

| journal = The Astrophysical Journal

| language = en

| last1 = Levesque

| last2 = Massey

| last3 = Olsen

| last4 = Plez

| last5 = Josselin

| last6 = Maeder

| last7 = Georges Meynet

| pages = 973–985

| s2cid = 15109583

| title = The Effective Temperature Scale of Galactic Red Supergiants: Cool, but Not as Cool as We Thought

| url = http://stacks.iop.org/0004-637X/628/i=2/a=973

| volume = 628

}}]]

Levesque uses both observations and modeling in her work. In the ultraviolet portion of the spectrum, she uses the Hubble Space Telescope to obtain spectra of star-forming galaxies.{{cite journal

| arxiv = 1504.00011

| bibcode = 2015ApJ...805..151Z

| date = 2015-01-01

| doi = 10.1088/0004-637X/805/2/151

| first1 = Erika

| first2 = Emily M.

| first3 = Claus

| first4 = Charles W.

| issn = 0004-637X

| issue = 2

| journal = The Astrophysical Journal

| language = en

| last1 = Zetterlund

| last2 = Levesque

| last3 = Leitherer

| last4 = Danforth

| pages = 151

| s2cid = 118991367

| title = Ultraviolet ISM Diagnostics for Star-forming Galaxies. I. Tracers of Metallicity and Extinction

| url = http://stacks.iop.org/0004-637X/805/i=2/a=151

| volume = 805

}} In the optical, she uses the Gemini and Keck observatories on Mauna Kea and the Las Campanas Observatories in Chile to study red supergiants in the Milky Way and in the Magellanic Clouds. She has discovered many new red supergiants, as well as the first candidate for a Thorne-Zytkow object (HV 2112).{{cite journal

| arxiv = 1406.0001

| bibcode = 2014MNRAS.443L..94L

| date = 2014-09-01

| doi = 10.1093/mnrasl/slu080

| doi-access = free

| first1 = Emily M.

| first2 = Philip

| first3 = Anna N.

| first4 = Nidia

| issn = 1745-3925

| issue = 1

| journal = Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters

| language = en

| last1 = Levesque

| last2 = Massey

| last3 = Żytkow

| last4 = Morrell

| pages = L94–L98

| s2cid = 119192926

| title = Discovery of a Thorne–Żytkow object candidate in the Small Magellanic Cloud

| volume = 443

}}

A 2017 conversation on Twitter between Levesque and fellow astrophysicist Jamie R. Lomax after an irruption of jumping spiders in Levesque's workplace{{where|date=December 2024}} led to informal experiments testing the animals' visual perception. Further information was provided by Nathan Morehouse, a researcher studying spider eyesight at the University of Cincinnati, who calculated that the spiders in question would be able to resolve the disc of the Moon. The cross-discipline interaction, which was said to constitute part of a suppositional field of 'arachno-astronomy', was lauded as a landmark moment on Science Twitter.{{cite news

| access-date = 2017-06-07

| first = Ed

| language = en-US

| last = Yong

| title = Tiny Jumping Spiders Can See the Moon

| url = https://theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/06/jumping-spiders-can-see-the-moon/529329

| work = The Atlantic

}}{{cite news

| access-date = 2017-06-09

| archive-date = June 7, 2017

| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20170607221858/news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/06/jumping-spiders-moon-stars-astronomy

| author-link = Nadia Drake

| date = June 7, 2017

| first = Nadia

| last = Drake

| title = We've Learned Jumping Spiders Can See the Moon, Thanks to Twitter

| url = http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/06/jumping-spiders-moon-stars-astronomy

| url-status = dead

}}

In 2014, Levesque received the Annie Jump Cannon Award for her innovative work on gamma ray bursts.{{Cite web |title=American Astronomical Society: Annie Jump Cannon Award in Astronomy |url=https://aas.org/grants-and-prizes/annie-jump-cannon-award-astronomy |access-date=2016-06-15 |website=aas.org}} In 2017, she was awarded a Sloan Fellowship, awarded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to early-career scholars.{{Cite web |title=2017 Sloan Fellowships |url=https://sloan.org/fellowships/2017-Fellows |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170708075903/https://sloan.org/fellowships/2017-Fellows |archive-date=2017-07-08 |access-date=2017-03-30}}

Levesque was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in April 2022.{{cite web |title=Meet Our 2022 Fellows |url=https://www.gf.org/announcements/ |access-date=April 12, 2022 |website=John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation}} From March to June of 2023, Levesque worked at the University of Auckland as a U.S. Fulbright scholar researching Thorne–Żytkow objects.{{Cite web |title=Emily Levesque {{!}} Fulbright Scholar Program |url=https://fulbrightscholars.org/grantee/emily-levesque |access-date=2024-04-05 |website=fulbrightscholars.org}}

Levesque's book Understanding Stellar Evolution, co-written with Henny Lamers and based on a series of graduate lectures, was awarded the 2023 Chambliss Astronomical Writing Award by the American Astronomical Society.{{Cite web |title=Chambliss Astronomical Writing Award |url=https://aas.org/grants-and-prizes/chambliss-astronomical-writing-award |access-date=2024-04-04}}

• {{cite book | last=Levesque | first=Emily | title=The last stargazers : the enduring story of astronomy's vanishing explorers | publication-place=Naperville, Illinois | date=2020 | isbn=978-1-4926-8107-6 | oclc=1125025889}}
• {{Cite book |last1=Lamers |first1=Henny J.G.L.M. |title=Understanding Stellar Evolution |last2=Levesque |first2=Emily M. |publisher=IOP |year=2018 |isbn=978-0-7503-1278-3}}
• {{Cite book |last=Levesque |first=Emily M. |title=Astrophysics of Red Supergiants |publisher=IOP |year=2017 |isbn=978-0-7503-1329-2}}

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{{Reflist}}

• [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8MkJ6TuAUU Emily Levesque's public talk in the Silicon Valley Astronomy Lecture Series]

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Category:American astrophysicists

Category:University of Washington faculty

Category:Massachusetts Institute of Technology School of Science alumni

Category:University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa alumni

Category:Recipients of the Annie J. Cannon Award in Astronomy

Category:Living people

Category:American women astrophysicists

Category:1984 births

Category:People from Taunton, Massachusetts

Category:Recipients of the Newton Lacy Pierce Prize in Astronomy