Heidi Hammel, Ph.D.

Heidi Hammel is the vice president for science at the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA), which operates world-class astronomical observatories for the U.S. government. She served as an interdisciplinary scientist advising NASA on the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). Her JWST observational program spanned the breadth of the solar system, but throughout her career her primary research has focused on Neptune and Uranus. Asteroid “1981 EC20” has been renamed 3530 Hammel in her honor.