USRA’s Chien-Ting Chen Appointed to Prestigious NASA Committee

Washington, DC—March 10, 2023. USRA /STI scientist Dr. Chien-Ting Chen  was recently appointed to serve on the prestigious Executive Committee (EC) for NASA's Physics of the Cosmos Program Analysis Group (PhysPAG) as part of the X-ray Science Interests Group.

Dr. Chien-Ting Chen

Dr. Chen joins 13 other scientists from a variety of institutions to serve on the EC, and his appointment term is for 3 years ending in December 2025. 

His broad research interests are in black holes and the connection between supermassive black holes and galaxy evolution using observations of active galactic nuclei and star-forming galaxies from space telescopes such as the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, Chandra, XMM-Newton, Spitzer, and the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer.

The PhysPAG serves as a community-based, interdisciplinary forum for soliciting and coordinating community analysis and input in support of Physics of the Cosmos objectives and of their implications for architecture planning and activity prioritization and for future exploration. It provides findings of analyses to the NASA Astrophysics Division Director of the Science Mission Directorate.  The EC oversees the activities of the PhysPAG.  The responsibilities of the EC include organizing meetings and collecting and summarizing community input for subsequent reporting to the Astrophysics Division Director.

Dr. Chen holds a Ph.D. in Physics and Astronomy from Dartmouth College and a Bachelor's and a Master's degree in Physics and Astronomy from the National University of Taiwan.