Irene Shivaei, Ph.D.

Irene Shivaei, Ph.D.

2021 Outstanding Postdoctoral Scholar Award
Assistant Research Professor, Steward Observatory
Headshot of award winner Irene Shirvaei

Irene Shivaei is a NASA Hubble fellow and a postdoctoral scholar in the Astronomy Department and at the Steward Observatory. She uses the largest telescopes on Earth and in space to study how distant galaxies were formed and have evolved throughout the history of the universe. She has more than 45 peer-reviewed articles and is a member of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) science team. JWST is the successor of the Hubble Space Telescope and is planned to launch in October 2021.

Irene received her Ph.D. in Physics from University of California at Riverside, while she was an NSF Graduate Research Fellow. She completed her undergraduate in Physics at University of Tehran in Iran. Her passion in outreach and education has led her to initiate multiple public outreach programs throughout the years, such as Mentoring and Education in Science for Tucson (MESCIT).