Debra Ann Fischer is an American astronomer who is the Eugene Higgins professor of astronomy at Yale University researching detection and characterization of exoplanets. She has detected hundreds of exoplanets and was part of the team to discover the first known multiple-planet system.[1][2]
Fischer has co-authored more than 300 papers on dwarf stars and exoplanets. In two papers with Jeff Valenti,[6] she quantified a correlation between the chemical composition of host stars and the formation of orbiting gas giant planets.[7][8] She led the N2K Consortium with Gregory P. Laughlin, detecting dozens of exoplanets around metal-rich stars at Keck Observatory, Subaru Observatory, and the Magellan Observatory.[2][9] Her work "The Twenty Five Year Lick Planet Search" is summarized in a 2014 paper.[10] In 2015, she organized an international workshop on Extreme Precision Radial Velocities at Yale University[11] and led the conference proceedings paper with 55 co-authors.[12] With the OxfordZooniverse team, Fischer co-founded the Planet Hunters Citizen Science project.[13]
Fischer has worked on instruments to improve measurement sensitivity for the detection of exoplanets. In 2011, she started the Fiber-optic Improved Next-generation Doppler Search for Exo-Earths with the Planetary Society, an improvement that helped planet hunters find smaller, more Earth-like extrasolar planets.[14] In 2014, she worked with colleagues at Yale University on a microcomb for precise wavelength calibration.[15] She was the principal investigator for three spectrographs: CHIRON, the CTIO High Resolution Spectrometer,[16] VUES, the Vilnius University Echelle Spectrograph [17] and EXPRES, the EXtreme PREcision Spectrograph.[18][19][20][21][22]
Fischer and colleagues[23][24][25] have also helped to advance statistical and machine learning methods to improve data analysis and sensitivity to low mass planets. Fischer served as the Division Director at the National Science Foundation from 2021 - 2023.[26]
Projects and Contributions
When Fischer discovered the first multiple planet system in 1999, she contributed to the acknowledgement of planet formation by using an analysis that identified and collaborated the impact of structures of planets and their gas giants and even the chemical composition of host stars.[27][28]
Fischer also created a project called planethunters.org, which helped with her and her organization with planet detection. According to Fischer, her "Planet Hunters" project was based on the Kepler Project, further resulting her and her group's expectations of their project to exceed successfully.[29]
