In November 2021, Elijah Mullens was staffing a pre-launch party for the James Webb Space Telescope at a local planetarium near his home in Florida. Not yet accepted to graduate school, he was explaining to children how the telescope was going to advance astronomy research. He didn't know yet that it would someday advance his astronomy research.
An illustration of the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope
Now in position one million miles from Earth, JWST will start a fourth annual cycle of observations on July 1 - and Mullens, now a doctoral student in astronomy in the College of Arts and Sciences (A&S), is principal investigator on two observation programs chosen from a very competitive field.
"To be someone who actually gets to use the telescope now is mind-blowing," he said.
Mullens is one of three early-career researchers in Cornell's Department of Astronomy to win time as principal investigators or co-principal investigators on JWST in the coming year. The others are Lili Alderson, a Klarman Postdoctoral Fellow in astronomy (A&S), and Ryan Challener, postdoctoral researcher in astronomy (A&S).
"PI and co-PI indicates a role as the project leader, which includes coming up with the concept for the observations and then constructing a high-quality proposal that will successfully make it through the review process," said Nikole Lewis, associate professor of astronomy (A&S). "The selection rate for these proposals is about 10%, so it is a major achievement to come up with an idea and put together a proposal that puts it at the top of the pile."
Read the full story on the College of Arts and Sciences website.
