Rosanne DiStefano
Personal Information
Born: unknown
Country of Birth: USA
Nationality: USA
Ethnicity: White
Education
CUNY Queens College BA 1973; Columbia University MA 1976; SUNY Stony Brook PhD 1982
""We are trying to open up a whole new arena for finding other worlds by searching for planet candidates at X-ray wavelengths, a strategy that makes it possible to discover them in other galaxies,” (cfa.harvard.edu); "A globular cluster might be the first place in which intelligent life is identified in our galaxy," (pweb.cfa.harvard.edu)"
— Rosanne DiStefano
Professional Life
Field of Study: Astrophysics
Institution/Corporation: Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
Degrees & Memberships: Member: American Astronomical Society; SAO Council; Association for Women in Science
Awards & Achievements
Awards: 1992-1994 Bunting Science Scholar; 1995-1997 Sigma Xi National Lecturer
Achievements: Astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Research in globular clusters; searches for exoplanet candidates that might sustain life in other galaxies; proponent of mesolensing techniques. With Nia Imara discovered possible new planet in M 51 galaxy (AKA The Whirlpool Galaxy) in 2022; Her work has encompassed a broad range of astronomical systems: stars interacting within dense stellar environments, the binary evolution of possible progenitors of Type Ia supernovae, X-ray astronomy, and gravitational microlensing; designed a program that brought undergraduates into the Cambridge Public Schools to teach astronomy; wrote the first comprehensive history of supersymmetry and supergravity, Notes on the Conceptual History of Supersymmetry, Supergravity, and Superstrings. It constituted a major portion of the book Superworld, edited by Kane and Shifman, World Scientific (2001).
Leader of a group that may have located an exoplanet the size of Saturn in the WhirlpoolGalaxy capable of sustaining life; it is 31 million light years away from Earth
She researches stars interacting within dense stellar environments, the evolution of supernovae, x-ray astronomy, & gravitational microlensing.
Sigma Xi National Lecturer
Her artwork can be found at rosanne-distefano.org/art/gallery/index.html
Confirmation of her findings about the possible M51 planet are made difficult because the exact nature of the orbit is unknown. It is believed the observed phenomenon will not occur again for another 70 years.