Marc Kuchner (born August 7, 1972) is an American Astrophysics, and the Citizen Science Officer at NASA Headquarters. He is known for his work on citizen science, and imaging of disks and Exoplanet. Together with Wesley Traub, he invented the band-limited coronagraph,Kuchner, M. & Traub, W.A. (2002). "A Coronagraph with a Band-limited Mask for Finding Terrestrial Planets". "The Astrophysical Journal" 570, 900-908. ( Abstract) used on the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), originally designed for the proposed Terrestrial Planet Finder (TPF) telescope. He is also known for his novel supercomputer models of planet-disk interactions and for developing the ideas of ,Kuchner, M. (2003). "Volatile-rich Earth-Mass Planets in the Habitable Zone". "The Astrophysical Journal" 596, L105-L108. ( Abstract) , and .Seager, S.; M. Kuchner, C. Hier-Majumder, B. Militzer (2007). "Mass-Radius Relationships for Solid Exoplanets". ApJ 669: 1279
Kuchner appears as an expert commentator in the National Geographic television show "" and frequently answers the "Ask Astro" questions in Astronomy Magazine. Kuchner helped found several citizen science projects, including Disk Detective and Backyard Worlds.
Kuchner's parents are neurosurgeon Eugene Kuchner and psychologist Joan Kuchner. His wife is epidemiologist Jennifer Nuzzo.
|
|