Leigh Jenkins
Latecomer to Astronomy is a Star in NASA’s Postdoctoral Program
Leigh Jenkins studies X-ray properties of galaxies far and wide using X-ray telescopes such as the Chandra and XMM-Newton space observatories near NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.
High-resolution version of photo. Photo courtesy of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.
Although she describes herself as a latecomer to her field, Leigh Jenkins, a NASA Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the X-ray Laboratory at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) in Greenbelt, Md., is already making waves through her work with NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope. Along with her mentor, NASA Astrophysicist Ann Hornschemeier, Jenkins recently led a study of the Coma cluster, an enormous congregation of galaxies 320 million light-years away in the Coma Berenices constellation.
Using the Spitzer Space Telescope’s Infrared Array Camera (IRAC), Jenkins and her team focused their study on the galaxies at the cluster’s center as well as in an outlying region. Their aim was to compare the galaxy populations in the different locations to see how environmental variations influence the evolution of galaxies. The team found nearly 30,000 objects in the designated space, 1,600 of which Jenkins estimates are actually dwarf galaxies, many more than have been identified in the past.
Jenkins finished her master’s degree in astrophysics at the University College of London in 2001. It wasn’t until a few years later that she decided to pursue a Ph.D. in astronomy, which she completed at the University of Leicester in the UK in 2005. It was while she was earning her Ph.D. that she first heard of NASA’s Postdoctoral Program, and was invited by Hornschemeier to apply.
Jenkins began her work at GSFC in January of 2006 and her studies of the Coma cluster’s galaxy population are just a portion of her overall research. Using X-ray space telescopes, Jenkins hopes to one day understand the X-ray properties of star-forming galaxies in the local universe.
“Determining when and why stars form is one of the key problems in astrophysics,” says Jenkins. “Once we understand the properties of star formation in galaxies in the local universe, we will be able to draw conclusions from X-ray surveys of galaxies at much greater distances, to establish how star formation has evolved from the early Universe to the present day.”
Jenkins adds that many of us would be surprised to learn that many of the galaxies she studies are very similar to our own.
Jenkins is nearly two-thirds of the way through her three-year tenure at GSFC, at the end of which she plans to continue on with her research, be it in the United States or back home in the UK. While she credits the NASA Postdoctoral Program with allowing her the freedom to pursue her area of interest and collaborate with some of the best scientists in her field, she has also enjoyed the experience of living abroad.
“I have very much enjoyed living in the Washington, D.C., area,” she says. “I think experiencing living and working away from your home country is always beneficial.”