Starstruck SU Grad Shines at NASA

by Charlotte Kovalchuk • photos courtesy Taylor Hutchison

Fascinated with the mechanics of how the world works, Taylor Hutchison was studying physics at Southwestern University when a Public Viewing Night got her hooked on astronomy.

While helping visitors look at planets and galaxies through the university’s telescope, she found herself enthralled by the cosmic display. “I remember when I saw the dome of our telescope open up. It was an exciting and awe-inspiring experience just me and the cosmos at night.”

Today, Taylor still looks through telescopes, albeit slightly larger ones, as an astrophysicist for NASA.

"At some point, our Milky Way galaxy started out as a baby galaxy and evolved as many different galaxies blasted into each other to become the big beautiful galaxy we see today.”

FROM STARGAZING TO STAR STUDY

Associate Physics Professor Mark Bottorff’s mentorship played a major role in helping her achieve that dream job, she says. He encouraged her to pursue a summer research program that gave her the chance to contribute data to science publications on supermassive black holes in nearby galaxies. It was an experience

that inspired her to study the most distant galaxies as a graduate student at Texas A&M.

While in A&M’s astronomy Ph.D. program, she had the rare opportunity to study the cosmos through NASA’s telescope in Hawaii (above). Her research, then and now, requires the most massive telescopes, which is why she was so excited when NASA launched the James Webb Space Telescope into space in 2021. “One of the main goals for it was looking at the most distant galaxies. This telescope was meant for this science.”

Thanks to her post-doctoral fellowship at NASA, Taylor now measures the physical conditions in some of the most distant galaxies ever discovered in order to answer the question, “What were the first galaxies like?"

She adds, “For the first time, we are able to directly measure the chemical composition of the stars and nebular gas, the strength and shape of the ionizing continuum, the amount of star formation, etc. of some of the most distant galaxies in the universe. It’s wild to me that this is possible my subfield will never be the same and it’s so exciting to see how rapidly this science is evolving.”

Her day-to-day work, though, isn’t as glamorous as some might think. “My job is as a scientist, but we joke that we’re computer programmers because we’re constantly at our computers analyzing data. When we’re lucky a few times out of the year, we get to feel like real astronomers and look through telescopes at night at observatories.”

INSPIRING FUTURE SCIENTISTS

Taylor firmly believes the service she provides to her community should be equally as important as the science she accomplishes. It’s why she created a job resource website to help others navigate the academic job cycle: tx.ag/postdocs

Hearing how the website resource has helped others secure astronomy jobs, she says, has been as rewarding as studying the cosmos and contributing scientific research. “Helping to level the playing field when it comes to challenging things (like academic job applications) is important to me, and I’m really happy when I hear from others how much that resource has helped them in their careers.”