Reba Bandyopadhyay | |
---|---|
Born | 1972 |
Education | |
Scientific career | |
Fields | |
Thesis | Infrared observations of X-ray binaries (1998) |
Doctoral advisor | Phil Charles |
Reba Mithua Bandyopadhyay (born 1972) [1] is an American science policy analyst. Formerly a professional astronomer, she works as deputy executive director of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology in the US Office of Science and Technology Policy, [2] and as legislative and science policy analyst for the National Science Board of the National Science Foundation. [3]
As an astronomer, Bandyopadhyay specialized in observations of the Galactic Center and of star systems containing neutron stars and black holes. [4] She has also participated in studies of 2060 Chiron, a Solar System object combining the characteristics of comets and asteroids. [5]
Bandyopadhyay graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1993. [5] She completed a D.Phil. in 1998 at the University of Oxford in England, with the dissertation Infrared observations of X-ray binaries supervised by Phil Charles. [6] After postdoctoral research at the Naval Research Laboratory, she worked for the Gemini Observatory from 2001 to 2004, at the observatory's Oxford office. She then became a research scientist at the University of Florida. [7]
From 2014 to 2015 Bandyopadhyay was a science advisor in the United States Senate, advising Brian Schatz as an American Physical Society Congressional Fellow, [2] [8] and from 2015 to 2017 she worked for the National Science Board as an American Association for the Advancement of Science Science & Technology Policy Executive Branch Fellow, [2] [4] before taking her present positions as deputy executive director of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology in the US Office of Science and Technology Policy, [2] and as legislative and science policy analyst for the National Science Board of the National Science Foundation. [3]
Bandyopadhyay was elected as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in 2021, in the AAAS Section on Astronomy. [9] She was elected as a Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS) in 2023, after a nomination from the APS Forum on Physics and Society, "for outstanding contributions to the nation through informing, crafting, and advancing innovative, inclusive, and data-driven science and technology policy". [10]