Dr. Amber Straughn

January 11, 2025

“This isn’t just a story about science and engineering, but a story of perseverance, of failure, of doing something that’s never been done before. A story that involves tens of thousands of people and spans decades. A story of daring to do something audacious. A story of the universe. A story of all of us.”

The launch of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) in 2021 was one of the most remarkable engineering feats in human history. Three years in and a million miles away, the telescope is revolutionizing our understanding of the cosmos, which may leave humankind with more insight into our origins and our place in the universe.

Straughn knows she is not alone in that curiosity. “Across time, across culture, across languages,” she said, “the universe invites us to look up and to wonder.”

So why do humans have such a fascination with the expanse? According to Straughn, it’s in our DNA. “The oxygen we breathe — the iron in our blood — was forged inside a star billions of years ago. We’re connected viscerally to the universe.”

Dr. Amber Straughn is an astrophysicist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and is a member of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) science team. She also serves as the associate director of the Astrophysics Science Division.

Straughn grew up in the small farming town of Bee Branch, Arkansas, where her fascination with astronomy began under beautifully dark, rural skies. She obtained her bachelor’s degree in physics at the University of Arkansas and completed her master’s and doctoral degrees in physics at Arizona State University. She has been involved in NASA programs since her undergrad years, beginning with the time she flew an experiment on NASA’s microgravity KC-135 plane (the “vomit comet”).

Straughn is interested in how galaxies change over time. Specifically, how important are galaxy interactions in the overall picture of how galaxies grow? How do supermassive black holes, star formation, and gas inflows and outflows affect galaxy evolution over cosmic time? These questions are central to NASA’s long-term goal to discover how the universe works while exploring how it began and evolved.

In addition to research, Straughn’s role with the JWST science team involves public speaking and media engagement. She frequently speaks to large audiences in the United States and abroad. Straughn has appeared on CBS’s “60 Minutes,” PBS’s “NOVA,” the Discovery Channel, the Science Channel, NatGeo, BBC, the History Channel, and NBC’s “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.”

Straughn lives in Maryland with her husband, Matt, and their two Great Danes. Her love of all things air and space prompted her to earn her private pilot’s license in 2013, and she is the owner of a Cessna 182. Straughn has been an active yoga practitioner since grad school, loves to hike, and is a fan of live music.