Carole Ann Haswell
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Carole Ann Haswell is a British astrophysicist and current Professor of Astrophysics and Head of Astronomy at the
Open University The Open University (OU) is a Public university, public research university and the largest university in the United Kingdom by List of universities in the United Kingdom by enrolment, number of students. The majority of the OU's undergraduate ...
. She is a Fellow of the
Royal Astronomical Society The Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) is a learned society and charitable organisation, charity that encourages and promotes the study of astronomy, planetary science, solar-system science, geophysics and closely related branches of science. Its ...
. She has been involved in the detection of several exoplanets, including
Barnard's Star b Barnard's Star b, or Barnard b, is a sub-Earth-mass exoplanet closely orbiting Barnard's Star, a nearby red dwarf star six light-years from Earth. The planet was discovered using radial velocity observations from the ESPRESSO spectrograph on the ...
.


Early life and education

Haswell was born in
Saltburn-by-the-Sea Saltburn-by-the-Sea, commonly referred to as Saltburn, is a seaside town in the civil parish of Saltburn, Marske and New Marske, in the Redcar and Cleveland unitary authority, in North Yorkshire, England. It is south-east of Hartlepool and so ...
,
North Yorkshire North Yorkshire is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in Northern England.The Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority areas of City of York, York and North Yorkshire (district), North Yorkshire are in Yorkshire and t ...
, and grew up in
Dormanstown Dormanstown is an area of Redcar in the borough of Redcar and Cleveland and the ceremonial county of North Yorkshire, England. It was named after and built by the Dorman Long iron and steelworks in the 20th century. It was originally built to ...
. Her father worked on an ammonia recovery plant at
Imperial Chemical Industries Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) was a British Chemical industry, chemical company. It was, for much of its history, the largest manufacturer in Britain. Its headquarters were at Millbank in London. ICI was listed on the London Stock Exchange ...
. She became interested in space as a child, when her father told her about the
Apollo Apollo is one of the Twelve Olympians, Olympian deities in Ancient Greek religion, ancient Greek and Ancient Roman religion, Roman religion and Greek mythology, Greek and Roman mythology. Apollo has been recognized as a god of archery, mu ...
astronauts as they gazed at the Moon while on
Redcar Redcar is a seaside town on the Yorkshire Coast in the Redcar and Cleveland unitary authority. It is in the ceremonial county of North Yorkshire, England, and is located east of Middlesbrough. The Teesside built-up area's Redcar subdiv ...
beach. Although she originally wanted to be an
astronaut An astronaut (from the Ancient Greek (), meaning 'star', and (), meaning 'sailor') is a person trained, equipped, and deployed by a List of human spaceflight programs, human spaceflight program to serve as a commander or crew member of a spa ...
, she realised at the age of ten that this was impractical. She attended Huntcliff School where she worked towards her
GCE Ordinary Level GCE can mean: * Galactic Center GeV excess * Gas Control Equipment, GCE Group, Sweden * General Certificate of Education * Global citizenship education * Google Compute Engine * Ground combat element in the United States Marine Corps * Guthri ...
s. Whilst a student at Prior Pursglove and Stockton Sixth Form College, Haswell was interested in art, mathematics and physics, and was a fan of the television show ''
Star Trek ''Star Trek'' is an American science fiction media franchise created by Gene Roddenberry, which began with the Star Trek: The Original Series, series of the same name and became a worldwide Popular culture, pop-culture Cultural influence of ...
''. One of her physics teachers was rumoured to be biased against girls, and despite Haswell achieving the highest grades possible in her
A-level The A-level (Advanced Level) is a subject-based qualification conferred as part of the General Certificate of Education, as well as a school leaving qualification offered by the educational bodies in the United Kingdom and the educational ...
exams, refused to write her a reference to study physics at university. She eventually studied mathematics at the
University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...
, but wanted to apply mathematics to the real world and became tired of abstract proofs. Haswell eventually spoke to
Donald Blackwell Donald Eustace Blackwell (27 May 1921 – 3 December 2010) was a British astronomer, who was Savilian Professor of Astronomy at the University of Oxford from 1960 to 1988. He studied at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, and was later appointed as ...
who helped her transfer courses, and enrolled on a physics degree at
University College, Oxford University College, formally The Master and Fellows of the College of the Great Hall of the University commonly called University College in the University of Oxford and colloquially referred to as "Univ", is a Colleges of the University of Oxf ...
. During her time as an undergraduate student, Haswell was President of the Oxford University Astronomical Society and rowed in the
Summer Eights Eights Week, also known as Summer Eights, is a four-day regatta of bumps races which constitutes the University of Oxford's main Colleges of the University of Oxford, intercollegiate Sport rowing, rowing event of the year. The regatta takes ...
. Haswell earned her doctorate at the
University of Texas at Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public university, public research university in Austin, Texas, United States. Founded in 1883, it is the flagship institution of the University of Texas System. With 53,082 stud ...
, where she worked on black hole binaries. She attended the
Hubble Space Telescope The Hubble Space Telescope (HST or Hubble) is a space telescope that was launched into low Earth orbit in 1990 and remains in operation. It was not the Orbiting Solar Observatory, first space telescope, but it is one of the largest and most ...
launch in 1990. She later joined the
Space Telescope Science Institute The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) is the science operations center for the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), science operations and mission operations center for the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), and science operations center for the ...
, where she worked on
accretion Accretion may refer to: Science * Accretion (astrophysics), the formation of planets and other bodies by collection of material through gravity * Accretion (meteorology), the process by which water vapor in clouds forms water droplets around nucl ...
flow and multi-wavelength observations.


Research and career

In 1994, Haswell moved to
Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...
, where she worked on
black hole A black hole is a massive, compact astronomical object so dense that its gravity prevents anything from escaping, even light. Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity predicts that a sufficiently compact mass will form a black hole. Th ...
X-ray transient X-ray emission occurs from many celestial objects. These emissions can have a pattern, occur intermittently, or as a transient astronomical event. In X-ray astronomy many sources have been discovered by placing an X-ray detector above the Earth's at ...
s and
cataclysmic variable star In astronomy, cataclysmic variable stars (CVs) are stars which irregularly increase in brightness by a large factor, then drop back down to a quiescent state. They were initially called novae (), since those with an outburst brightness visible t ...
s. She was made a lecturer at the
Barnard College Barnard College is a Private college, private Women's colleges in the United States, women's Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college affiliated with Columbia University in New York City. It was founded in 1889 by a grou ...
where one of her students was
Lauryn Hill Lauryn Noelle Hill (born May 26, 1975) is an American musician. She is celebrated as one of the most influential musical artists of her generation. Hill is credited with breaking barriers for female rappers, contributing to the popular music, m ...
. Haswell moved back to the
United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
in 1996 and was made a lecturer at the
University of Sussex The University of Sussex is a public university, public research university, research university located in Falmer, East Sussex, England. It lies mostly within the city boundaries of Brighton and Hove. Its large campus site is surrounded by the ...
. Since 1999, she has been at the
Open University The Open University (OU) is a Public university, public research university and the largest university in the United Kingdom by List of universities in the United Kingdom by enrolment, number of students. The majority of the OU's undergraduate ...
, at first still working on
black hole A black hole is a massive, compact astronomical object so dense that its gravity prevents anything from escaping, even light. Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity predicts that a sufficiently compact mass will form a black hole. Th ...
s and accreting binary stars and switching to exoplanet research in 2003. Early work on
exoplanet An exoplanet or extrasolar planet is a planet outside the Solar System. The first confirmed detection of an exoplanet was in 1992 around a pulsar, and the first detection around a main-sequence star was in 1995. A different planet, first det ...
s was not well funded, and Haswell has spoken about using second hand
Canon Canon or Canons may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Canon (fiction), the material accepted as officially written by an author or an ascribed author * Literary canon, an accepted body of works considered as high culture ** Western canon, th ...
camera lenses to make suitable telescopes. First working on accreting binary stars, and then exoplanets. In particular, Haswell studies short period exoplanets. Since 2012 she has led the ''Dispersed Matter Planet Project'', which involves the analysis of light from nearby stars to identify which host mass-losing planets. In 2018 Haswell was part of the team that was first to identify a planet around
Barnard's Star Barnard's Star is a small red dwarf star in the constellation of Ophiuchus. At a distance of from Earth, it is the fourth-nearest-known individual star to the Sun after the three components of the Alpha Centauri system, and is the c ...
, the closest single (non-binary) star to Earth, a red dwarf star that is six light years away from Earth. Using the
radial velocity method Doppler spectroscopy (also known as the radial-velocity method, or colloquially, the wobble method) is an indirect method for finding extrasolar planets and brown dwarfs from radial-velocity measurements via observation of Doppler shifts in th ...
, the team discovered
Barnard's Star b Barnard's Star b, or Barnard b, is a sub-Earth-mass exoplanet closely orbiting Barnard's Star, a nearby red dwarf star six light-years from Earth. The planet was discovered using radial velocity observations from the ESPRESSO spectrograph on the ...
. The planetary system around
Barnard's Star Barnard's Star is a small red dwarf star in the constellation of Ophiuchus. At a distance of from Earth, it is the fourth-nearest-known individual star to the Sun after the three components of the Alpha Centauri system, and is the c ...
touches on the edge of the
Oort cloud The Oort cloud (pronounced or ), sometimes called the Öpik–Oort cloud, is scientific theory, theorized to be a cloud of billions of Volatile (astrogeology), icy planetesimals surrounding the Sun at distances ranging from 2,000 to 200,000 A ...
.
Barnard's Star b Barnard's Star b, or Barnard b, is a sub-Earth-mass exoplanet closely orbiting Barnard's Star, a nearby red dwarf star six light-years from Earth. The planet was discovered using radial velocity observations from the ESPRESSO spectrograph on the ...
has a mass three times that of Earth and orbits Barnard's Star in 233 days. Haswell has predicted that the planet may have a similar surface temperature to
Europa Europa may refer to: Places * Europa (Roman province), a province within the Diocese of Thrace * Europa (Seville Metro), Seville, Spain; a station on the Seville Metro * Europa City, Paris, France; a planned development * Europa Cliffs, Alexan ...
. In 2019 Haswell used the
High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher The High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher (HARPS) is a high-precision echelle planet-finding spectrograph installed in 2002 on the ESO's 3.6m telescope at La Silla Observatory in Chile. The first light was achieved in February 2003. ...
(HARPS) to discover six extraordinarily hot exoplanets (with surface temperatures between 1100 and 1800 °C). At temperatures this high the atmosphere and surface levels of the planet can be lost, and the materials disperse into a thin sheet of gas. The gas filters the light from nearby stars, which allowed Haswell and colleagues to study the chemical composition of the atmosphere of the gas sheet. The planets have masses equivalent to 2.6 times the mass of the Earth with almost half the mass of Jupiter. Haswell has proposed that these planets could be used to understand the geology of the rocky planets in Earth's solar system. She is part of the team for CHaracterising ExOPlanets Satellite (CHEOPS), which will examine known exoplanets to improve our understanding of their sizes. CHEOPS, which features a 35 cm telescope, launched in December 2019.


Public engagement and academic service

Haswell has been featured in a
Royal Astronomical Society The Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) is a learned society and charitable organisation, charity that encourages and promotes the study of astronomy, planetary science, solar-system science, geophysics and closely related branches of science. Its ...
exhibition on women fellows. She regularly provides expert opinion to the national media and is involved with various outreach programmes through the
International Astronomical Union The International Astronomical Union (IAU; , UAI) is an international non-governmental organization (INGO) with the objective of advancing astronomy in all aspects, including promoting astronomical research, outreach, education, and developmen ...
. Haswell was awarded the
Open University The Open University (OU) is a Public university, public research university and the largest university in the United Kingdom by List of universities in the United Kingdom by enrolment, number of students. The majority of the OU's undergraduate ...
Outreach and Public Engagement Award for her work targeted at people with low science capital in
Teesside Teesside () is an urban area around the River Tees in North East England. Straddling the border between County Durham and North Yorkshire, it spans the boroughs of Borough of Middlesbrough, Middlesbrough, Borough of Stockton-on-Tees, Stockton ...
.


Personal life

Haswell has a daughter. She is interested in the
stock market A stock market, equity market, or share market is the aggregation of buyers and sellers of stocks (also called shares), which represent ownership claims on businesses; these may include ''securities'' listed on a public stock exchange a ...
and has used her understanding of astrophysics to buy and sell stocks.


Publications

Haswell's publications include: * * *


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Haswell, Carole Ann Living people Year of birth missing (living people) British women astrophysicists British astrophysicists People from Saltburn-by-the-Sea Alumni of University College, Oxford Academics of the Open University University of Texas at Austin alumni Columbia University faculty Academics of the University of Sussex 21st-century British physicists British expatriate academics in the United States 20th-century British women scientists 21st-century British women scientists 20th-century British physicists