Fiona Harrison

Harrison completed her undergraduate degree at Dartmouth College, graduate studies in physics at UC Berkeley, and joined the Caltech physics faculty in 1995 where she is currently the Harold A. Rosen Professor of Physics. Harrison's research focuses on understanding some of the hottest, densest, and most energetic phenomena in the universe, as well as developing advanced detectors and instrumentation for future space missions.

She is Principal Investigator of NASA’s Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, launched in 2012, a mission based on technologies Harrison and colleagues developed over more than a decade. Recently she is leading the development of the Ultraviolet Explorer (UVEX) medium class explorer mission, slated for launch in 2030, that will map low mass galaxies in the local universe and follow-up transients and gravitational wave mergers.

She has received numerous awards, including the Presidential Early Career award, the NASA Outstanding Public Leadership medal, the Bruno Rossi Prize of the American Astronomical Society, and the Hans Bethe Prize of the American Physical Society. She is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and is a member of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS). She co-chaired the 2020 NAS Decadal Survey of Astronomy and Astrophysics, which recommended how the Nation should invest in astronomy and astrophysics in the coming decade.