{"id":22645,"date":"2014-02-18T14:46:50","date_gmt":"2014-02-19T00:46:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/?p=22645"},"modified":"2021-11-05T10:34:54","modified_gmt":"2021-11-05T20:34:54","slug":"astronomer-christoph-baranec-named-sloan-foundation-fellow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2014\/02\/18\/astronomer-christoph-baranec-named-sloan-foundation-fellow\/","title":{"rendered":"Astronomer Christoph Baranec named Sloan Foundation Fellow"},"content":{"rendered":"Reading time: <\/span> < 1<\/span> minute<\/span><\/span>
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Christoph Baranec<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Assistant Astronomer Christoph Baranec<\/strong> of the University of Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> at Mānoa Institute for Astronomy<\/a> has been selected as one of 126 recipients of a 2014 Sloan Research Fellowship<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Awarded annually since 1955, the two-year fellowships are given to early-career scientists and scholars whose achievements and potential identify them as the next generation of scientific leaders.<\/p>\n

In nominating Baranec for the award, Institute for Astronomy Director Güenther Hasinger<\/strong> said, “Dr. Baranec is a rising star in the field of astronomical instrumentation. Even at this early stage of his career he has amassed a record of outstanding contributions to the field of adaptive optics<\/a>, which removes the blurring effects of the Earth’s atmosphere for ground-based astronomical telescopes.”<\/p>\n

Baranec’s most significant work has been the development of a replicable, cost effective, and fully automated adaptive optics system called Robo-AO<\/a>, which enables modest-size (1- to 3-meter) telescopes to image objects 10 times more sharply than without the system. Installed on the Palomar 1.5-meter telescope in California, it enabled Baranec and his colleagues to confirm numerous exoplanet candidates found by NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope. He plans to implement such a system on the UH<\/abbr> 2.2-meter telescope on Mauna Kea.<\/p>\n

After majoring in astronomy at the California Institute of Technology<\/a>, Baranec studied optical sciences at the University of Arizona<\/a> and received a PhD in 2007. He spent six years as a postdoctoral scholar at Caltech before joining the University of Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> faculty in July 2013. Baranec works at the Institute for Astronomy Hilo office in the University of Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> at Hilo University Research Park.<\/p>\n

For more, read the Institute for Astronomy’s news release<\/a>.<\/p>\n

—By Louise Good<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Institute for Astronomy’s Christoph Baranec has been selected as one of 126 recipients of a 2014 Sloan Research Fellowship.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[34,35,949,9],"class_list":["post-22645","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-people","tag-astronomy","tag-institute-for-astronomy","tag-robo-ao","tag-uh-manoa","entry","has-media"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t