Mag Honors Star Professor

A Harvard astronomy professor has been named 2007 Scientist of the Year by Discover Magazine.

David Charbonneau, who teaches Science A-47 “Cosmic Connections,” is featured in the magazine’s December issue, which hits newsstands today.

“I’m very honored and very excited to hear the news,” Charbonneau said yesterday in response to receiving the distinction.

Discover, a consumer-interest science magazine, says that it aims to recognize “the researcher who has made the most important contribution to science in the past year,” according to a statement last week.

“[He] has made outstanding contributions to astronomy and enhanced our understanding of the world beyond the one we inhabit,” Discover Chief Executive Officer Henry Donahue said in the statement.

In his research, Charbonneau has worked to develop innovative techniques to discover and characterize planets orbiting stars other than the Sun. His work also considers the possibility of life on other planets.

Charbonneau covers similar topics in Cosmic Connections, which examines the links between astronomical events and the necessary conditions for the emergence of life.

“The topics are easy to integrate,” he said, “because the same things that appeal on the research side are also appealing to students who might want to take the course.”

During Cosmic Connections lectures, Charbonneau uses real data and teaches methods that researchers use to study the planets and stars.

“In some cases, we look at data that is hot off the presses and isn’t even published yet,” he said.

According to Sarah E. Wick ’10, Charbonneau does not usually emphasize his own role in the research he presents in class.

“I don’t think anyone in the class knew what a big deal he was until recently,” she said.

Charbonneau said yesterday that he is currently focused on the MEarth Project, which involves building an array of ground-based telescopes to detect potentially habitable planets. These telescopes will focus on rocky planets orbiting nearby low-mass stars that are cooler and dimmer than the Sun. The first few telescopes have already been built in Southern Arizona.

—Staff writer Sue Lin can be reached at suelin@fas.harvard.edu.