Four NASA affiliations from the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) were appointed as 2022 Fellows in recognition of their outstanding scientific and social achievements in science enterprises.

The AAAS committee as a member of the peer confers on their efforts representing scientific advancement or its application in social services, allowing them to differentiate their efforts among peers and colleagues. The 2022 Fellowship Course includes 508 scientists, engineers and innovators, covering 24 scientific disciplines.

Rita Sambruna of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, was recognized in the AAAS AAAS section on astronomy, and Jennifer Wiseman from Goddard also received in the AAAS Physics section Recognized. Dorothy Peteet of NASA's Goddard Space Research Institute (GISS) received honors in the Earth Sciences division of AAAS. Erik Conway of NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California is respected for his outstanding contribution and public advocacy to the history of science and understanding of contemporary science and science policy.

Rita Sambruna

Dr. Rita Sambruna is acting deputy director of the Bureau of Science and Exploration and deputy director of the astrophysics division of Goddard. She also promotes the participation of underrepresented groups in science.

She worked with a team to position Goddard’s top priority for a decade of leadership. She led a team to provide Goddard’s Vision for the Science Support Center for Multiration Astrophysics, leading the astrophysics community to get the most from NASA and the celestial sources of NASA.

She came to Goddard in 2005 to study multi-wavelength observations of jets using the Fermi Gamma ray space telescope and other NASA functions. From 2010 to 2020, she worked at NASA headquarters in Washington as a program scientist in astrophysics. Her research interests include relativity jets, the physics of compact objects, supermassive black holes in galaxies, and multi-wavelength and multi-person astrophysics.

In December 2022, Sambruna was awarded the Honorary Scholarship from the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) as an internationally renowned astrophysicist. He embodies the mission of RAS to promote scientific development and adds a long-standing group. Participate in a wide range of interests in astronomy and a wide range of interests in astronomy. In 2019, she received the NASA Medal of Extraordinary Achievement for her leadership in the 2020 Astrophysics Decadal Investigation Research. She was appointed as a member of the American Physical Society in 2020 and became a member of the American Astronomical Society in 2021.

Jennifer Wiseman

Dr. Jennifer Wiseman is a senior astrophysicist at Goddard and a senior researcher at Goddard, where she is a senior project scientist for the Hubble Space Telescope. Her main responsibility is to ensure that the Hubble mission is as effective scientifically as possible. Previously, Wiseman led Goddard's external activities and the stellar astrophysics laboratory. She started her career at NASA in 2003 and is a program scientist at Hubble University and several other astrophysics missions at NASA headquarters.

Wiseman's scientific expertise is to study the star-shaped regions in our galaxy using a variety of tools including radio, optical and infrared telescopes. She is particularly interested in the dense interstellar gas cloud core, embedded mass stars and their associated outflows as active components of cosmic nurseries. In addition to research in astrophysics, Wiseman is also interested in scientific policy and public science advocacy and participation. She served as a congressional scientific fellow at the American Physical Society, an elected member of the American Astronomical Society, and a leader in public dialogue at the AAAS. She enjoys speaking on the excitement of astronomy and scientific discoveries and has appeared in many scientific and news venues, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, Rising Stars and National Public Broadcasting.

Dorothy Peteet

Dr. Dorothy M. Peteet is a senior research scientist at GISS and an adjunct professor at Columbia University. She directs the Paleoecological department of the new core laboratory of the Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory in Colombia.

She is working with GISS climate modelers and LDEO geochemists to study conditions for the late Pleistocene and Holocene that are archived in sediments in lakes and wetlands. Peteet recorded past vegetation changes, which were derived from analysis of pollen and spores, large fossils of animals and plants, carbon, and charcoal embedded in sediments. Her research provides local and regional records of ancient vegetation and climate history. A recent focus is on fixing carbon in northern peatlands and coastal swamps: ecosystems that are now susceptible to climate change and may release carbon into the atmosphere.

Peteet also conducted climate modeling experiments to test hypotheses about the last glacier’s largest and sudden climate change. She is interested in climate sensitivity and how past climate change and ecological transformation can provide insights into future climate change.

Erik Conway

Erik Conway has been a historian of JPL since 2004. Prior to that, he was a contract historian at the NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. He is a historian of science and technology and has written history of atmospheric science, supersonic transport, aviation infrastructure, Mars exploration and climate change denial.

He is the author of nine recent books.History of Near-Earth Object Research” (NASA, 2022) and “Great Myth” (Bloomsbury, 2023). His bookSuspicious businessman” Naomi Oreskes received the Helen Miles Davis and Watson Davis Awards in the History of the Science Society. He received a Guggenheim scholarship in 2018 and received the Athelstan Spilhaus Award from the American Geophysical Union in 2016.

AAAS notes that these winners have surpassed in their respective disciplines. They bring a wide range of perspectives, innovation, curiosity and enthusiasm that will help sustain the field of science today and in the future. Many of these people have been undermined by the barriers to success in a given discipline.

AAAS is the largest general scientific society in the world and publisher of the scientific journal family.

For information about NASA and Agent Programs, visit: