Barger Named Packard Fellow
Amy J. Barger, formerly a postdoctoral fellow at IfA and now a University of
Wisconsin-Madison assistant professor of astronomy, was one of 16 young academics
named a 2003 Packard Foundation Fellow for Science and Engineering in October 2003.
Barger and the other fellows will each receive an award of $625,000 during the next
five years for unrestricted use in their programs of research.
As a visiting adjunct astronomer in the UH Department of Physics and Astronomy, Barger
spends about half the year at the IfA. She wrote "Cosmic Downsizing and Quasar Extinction" in
Na Kilo Hoku (no. 8, summer 2003).
Barger's research focuses on determining when
cosmic star formation was most vigorous, when
distant supermassive black holes were actively
gobbling material from their nearby environments,
and how the behavior of supermassive black holes
relates to star formation in their galaxy hosts.
Another of her research interests is understanding
gamma-ray bursts--mysterious, fleeting, and
highly energetic events suspected to be the
powerful explosions that occur when very massive
stars collapse to become black holes.
The Packard Fellowship Program was established in 1988 by the David and Lucile Packard
Foundation to strengthen university-based science and engineering programs. By supporting
unusually creative researchers early in their careers, the foundation hopes to develop
scientific leaders, further the work of promising young scientists and engineers, and
support efforts to attract talented graduate students into university research in the United States.