Pfaudler Lecture Series - The James Webb Space Telescope: A Triumph of Technology Development

Donald Figer, Ph.D., RIT Professor, Director of the Center for Detectors and Future Photon Initiative and Rochester Imaging Detector Laboratory Will the world look back and realize that 2022 was the defining moment for Astrophysics that happened in our lifetime? With a BA from Northwestern University with a triple major in physics, math, and astronomy, an MS in astronomy and astrophysics from the University of Chicago, and a Ph.D. in astronomy from the University of California, Los Angeles, Dr. Figer was poised for discoveries. As the director of both the Center for Detectors and the Future Photon Initiative and as a professor in the College of Science at Rochester Institute of Technology, Dr. Figer researches massive stars, massive star clusters, the Galactic center, and advanced detectors for cross-disciplinary applications. He previously was co-founder and director of the Independent Detector Testing Laboratory at the Space Telescope Science Institute where he led a team to do the competitive characterization of prototype infrared detectors for the James Webb Space Telescope. He identified the Pistol star as one of the most massive known. He made the first direct measurement of an upper limit to the masses of stars and has discovered more evolved massive stars and massive star clusters in the Galaxy than any other researcher. His detectors and have been used in Nobel Prize-winning research that discovered dark energy and the supermassive black hole at the center of the Galaxy, and his work continues. Dr. Figer has received numerous awards for his work.