Rebecca Oppenheimer

Rebecca Oppenheimer (born April 1, 1972) is an American astrophysicist and comparative exoplanetary scientist. She studies planets and orbiting stars other than the Sun and is one of the four professors in the Department of Astrophysics at the AMNH (American Museum of Natural History). Her optics laboratory in the Rose Center for Earth and Space is where new astronomical instruments are built and designed to tackle the issue of directly seeing and taking spectra of nearby planetary systems. Oppenheimer is the co-discoverer of the first brown dwarf and was the first scientist to study the atmospheric composition, chemistry, and physics of a sub-stellar object outside the Solar System with the ultimate goal of finding life outside the Solar System.