Jane Rigby

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For the bowls player, see Jane Rigby (bowls).
Jane Rigby
Rigby in 2023
Born
Seaford, Delaware, United States
Alma materPennsylvania State University (BS, 2000)
University of Arizona (MS, 2003; PhD, 2006)
Known forJames Webb Space Telescope
SpouseAndrea Leistra
Children1
Awards
Scientific career
InstitutionsGoddard Space Flight Center
Doctoral advisorGeorge H. Rieke

Jane Rigby is an American astrophysicist who works at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) as Senior Project Scientist of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). She has frequently made public appearances and is known for her association with the telescope. She has also worked to support inclusivity in science. In 2024, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Joe Biden.

Originally from Seaford, Delaware, Rigby received a bachelor's degree from Pennsylvania State University, followed by a master's degree and PhD from the University of Arizona. In 2010, Rigby joined GSFC as the deputy operations project scientist of the planned JWST, which had been facing cost and schedule issues. She became the operations project scientist in 2018, which involved assessing the success of the telescope after its 2021 launch. She was involved in the publication of its first results and the release of its first images. In 2023, she succeeded John C. Mather as the telescope's senior project scientist.

Education and personal life

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Jane Rigby was born and raised in Seaford, Delaware.[1][2] Both of her parents were teachers, and she has one sister.[2] As a preschooler, her favorite television show was Cosmos, hosted by astronomer Carl Sagan.[3] After attending a talk by Sally Ride, when she was about twelve years old, she wanted to become an astronaut,[3] and she participated in Space Camp in Huntsville.[2] However, her height was below the requirements for the Space Shuttle program, so she instead chose to pursue astronomy.[2][3][4] She graduated from Seaford High School in 1996.[1]

Rigby was an undergraduate student at Pennsylvania State University. She was advised by Jane Charlton, who brought her to the first telescope she worked with, the McDonald Observatory in Texas. She gained a research interest the growth of galaxies with supermassive black holes.[3] She received bachelor degrees in physics and astronomy in 2000,[5][1] completing an undergraduate dissertation on Magnesium II emission systems.[6]

Rigby moved to the University of Arizona for graduate studies in 2000, where she was a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow and received a master's degree in 2003. She received a PhD from the same institution in 2006, under the supervision of George H. Rieke.[7] Rigby spent six months as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Arizona before being appointed a Carnegie Fellow at the Carnegie Observatories in California.[8][5]

Rigby came out as lesbian in 2000. When she joined the University of Arizona, homosexuality was against state law.[9][10] There, she met a fellow graduate student in astronomy,[3] Andrea Leistra, whom she later married.[5] The couple has a son, born in 2013 or 2014.[11] Rigby has also participated in LGBT rights activism; during her postdoctoral work, she campaigned against a California proposition that would have banned same-sex marriage.[4]

Career

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Nancy Grace Roman with Jane Rigby and the James Webb Space Telescope

Rigby has authored over 150 papers.[12] She has worked with telescopes including the Keck Observatory and Magellan Telescopes, as well as the Hubble, Spitzer, and Chandra space telescopes.[3][12]

James Webb Space Telescope

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In 2010, Rigby was appointed deputy operations project scientist at the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and civil servant at Goddard Space Flight Center, located in Greenbelt, Maryland. Upon taking the job, she read a third-party report on the telescope's delays and budget overruns.[3] Rigby's job involved reinstating featured that had been cut due to cost,[4] ensuring the feasibility of design changes, and communicating between scientists and engineers.[3]

Rigby at the White House during the 2022 presentation of the JWST's first images

Rigby was made JWST's project scientist for operations in 2018.[3] In the five months after the it launched on December 25, 2021, Rigby's job was to commission the JWST.[4] Her job was to assess the performance of the telescope, such as the amount of light leak that could obscure the data.[3][4] The telescope was very successful.[3][1] In July 2022, Rigby published the first scientific results from JWST,[4] and on July 11, she appeared at the White House, alongside President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, for the unveiling of the JWST's first images.[7]

In the first year of JWST's operation, Rigby led a project researching star formation in distant galaxies whose gravitationally lensed light was not visible to any telescope before it.[13][14] Rigby is also responsible for TEMPLATES (Targeting Extremely Magnified Panchromatic Lensed Arcs and Their Extended Star Formation), a project that looks to use high signal-to-noise NIRSpec and mid-infrared integral field units (IFU) spectroscopy to image 4 gravitationally lensed galaxies.[15] She announced the project's discovery of hydrocarbons in a galaxy over twelve billion light years away in June 2023.[3] The same month, Rigby was chosen as the senior project scientist for the JWST, succeeding John C. Mather.[16] In this position, she managed the scientific goals of the telescope.[3]

President Biden awarded Rigby with the Presidential Medal of Freedom on May 3, 2024,[5] in recognition of her work on JWST[12] and support for inclusivity in science.[2][7] In her acceptance speech, Rigby expressed gratitude for Ride as well as gay rights activists Harvey Milk and Bayard Rustin, all of whom were previous honorees of the award.[7][12] In her hometown, the Seaford Museum planned an exhibit about the JWST for the following summer.[1][2]

Outreach and work for inclusivity

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Jane Rigby speaks, wearing a JWST-themed jacket and a rainbow-flag-themed NASA t-shirt.
Rigby speaking at the Children's Museum of Indianapolis in 2024

Rigby has worked to engage the public with science.[12] She has frequently made public appearances wearing JWST-themed accessories. Writing for Science News, Lisa Grossman said, "Rigby's palpable joy in discussing the success of the JWST ... has made her one of the public faces of the telescope." Rigby spoke to the publication about her popularity, "I understand the desire to humanize something that can seem really big and impersonal. But I don’t like the singling out. I try to reflect it back to the team."[3]

Rigby has worked on supporting inclusivity in the field, including co-organizing conferences and writing a white paper about the subject.[3] Rigby was a founding member of the American Astronomical Society Committee for Sexual-Orientation and Gender Minorities in Astronomy (originally the Working Group on LGBTQ Equality) in January 2012, and later served as the committee's Board Liaison.[5] Rigby has said that her experience as a queer person has made her a better astronomer by influencing her leadership skills and thoughts toward community impact.[3][9][10]

Awards and honors

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Joe Biden giving a medal to Jane Rigby
Rigby receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2024

References

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  1. ^ a b c d e "Rigby finds place among the stars as Biden honors Delaware astronomer". Daily State News. May 6, 2024. Retrieved October 14, 2025.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g McClure, Mike (May 9, 2024). "Seaford native Dr. Jane Rigby presented with Presidential Medal of Freedom". Morning Star Publications. Retrieved October 14, 2025.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Grossman, Lisa (August 10, 2023). "Meet Jane Rigby, senior project scientist for JWST and advocate for LGBTQ+ astronomers". Science News. Retrieved October 13, 2025.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g Witze, Alexandra. "Nature's 10". www.nature.com. Retrieved December 15, 2022.
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h Levesque, Brody (May 4, 2024). "Astrophysicist Jane Rigby awarded Presidential Medal of Freedom". Los Angeles Blade. Retrieved October 14, 2025.
  6. ^ Rigby, Jane Rebecca (2000). The properties of weak MgII absorption systems (Thesis). OCLC 299248856.
  7. ^ a b c d Brean, Henry (May 8, 2024). "U of A alum receives Medal of Freedom for work on Webb telescope". Arizona Daily Star. Retrieved October 14, 2025.
  8. ^ "About Jane Rigby". www.astrobetter.com. Retrieved December 22, 2021.
  9. ^ a b "SGMA interviews: Jane Rigby | American Astronomical Society". aas.org. Retrieved December 22, 2021.
  10. ^ a b Adamczeski, Ryan (May 4, 2024). "Who is Jane Rigby, the lesbian scientist who just received a Medal of Freedom?". The Advocate. Retrieved October 14, 2025.
  11. ^ Koren, Marina (January 8, 2022). "Even NASA Seems Surprised by Its New Space Telescope". The Atlantic. Retrieved October 14, 2025.
  12. ^ a b c d e Ravisetti, Monisha (May 9, 2024). "James Webb Space Telescope chief scientist Jane Rigby receives highest US civilian award". Space.com. Retrieved October 13, 2025.
  13. ^ Billings, Lee (July 11, 2022). "Meet the Woman Who Makes the James Webb Space Telescope Work". Scientific American. Retrieved October 14, 2025.
  14. ^ McNamee, Kai; Yu, Mallory (December 25, 2022). "How the James Webb Space Telescope transformed astronomy this year". NPR. Retrieved October 14, 2025.
  15. ^ "ERS Program 1355". STScI.edu. Retrieved December 22, 2021.
  16. ^ Gutro, Rob (June 28, 2023). Adkins, Jamie (ed.). "NASA Names Dr. Jane Rigby New Webb Telescope Senior Project Scientist". NASA. Retrieved June 28, 2023.
  17. ^ "Spitzer: Fellowships". irsa.ipac.caltech.edu. Retrieved December 22, 2021.
  18. ^ Szkaradnik, Mindy (October 2013). "Penn State Eberly College of Science alumni receive awards". The Daily Collegian. Retrieved December 22, 2021.
  19. ^ "Science Journal December 2013 by Penn State Science - The Eberly College of Science - Issuu". issuu.com. November 17, 2015. Archived from the original on December 22, 2021. Retrieved December 22, 2021.
  20. ^ "Awards Won - Gravitational Astrophysics Laboratory - 663". science.gsfc.nasa.gov. Retrieved December 22, 2021.
  21. ^ "Jane Rigby CV" (PDF). Retrieved February 19, 2025.
  22. ^ "Lindsay Awards and Lectures". scicolloq.gsfc.nasa.gov. Retrieved December 22, 2021.
  23. ^ "Nature's 10". www.nature.com. Retrieved December 22, 2021.
  24. ^ "NASA Goddard Astrophysicist Awarded 2022 LGBTQ+ Scientist of the Year". May 12, 2022. Archived from the original on March 29, 2023. Retrieved June 6, 2022.
  25. ^ "BBC 100 Women 2022: Who is on the list this year?". BBC News. Retrieved December 10, 2022.
  26. ^ "Fred Kavli Plenary Lecture". American Astronomical Society. Retrieved October 14, 2025.
  27. ^ "Judy Shepard, Nancy Pelosi, and Jane Rigby among Medal of Freedom honorees". www.advocate.com. Retrieved May 4, 2024.