Jane Rigby (astrophysicist)

Jane Rebecca Rigby is an American astrophysicist who works at the Goddard Space Flight Center and is Senior Project Scientist of the James Webb Space Telescope. She was selected one of Nature's 10 Ones to Watch in 2021 and Shape 2022. In 2024 she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Joe Biden.

Early life and education
A 1996 graduate of Seaford High School in Seaford, Delaware, Rigby became interested in astrophysics as a high school student. She has said Sally Ride made her realize that girls could study physics. Rigby was an undergraduate student at Pennsylvania State University. She worked toward a degree in physics and astronomy, and completed an undergraduate dissertation on MgII emission systems. She moved to the University of Arizona for graduate studies, where she worked on X-ray diagnostics of active galactic nuclei under the supervision of George H. Rieke.

Research and career


Rigby spent six months as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Arizona before being appointed a Carnegie Fellow at the Carnegie Observatories. In 2010, Rigby was appointed deputy operations project scientist at the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and civil servant at Goddard Space Flight Center. She was made project scientist for operations in 2018. She delivered a TED talk on space telescopes in 2011. In June 2023, she was chosen as the senior project scientist for the JWST, succeeding John C. Mather.

Rigby is responsible for TEMPLATES (Targeting Extremely Magnified Panchromatic Lensed Arcs and Their Extended Star Formation), a project that looks to use high signal-to-noise NIRSpec and mid-infrared integral field units (IFU) spectroscopy to image 4 gravitationally lensed galaxies. The program is expected to spatially resolve star formation.

Work for inclusivity
Rigby was a founding member of the American Astronomical Society Committee for Sexual-Orientation and Gender Minorities in Astronomy. In 2015 she co-organised Inclusive Astronomy, a worldwide initiative to celebrate inclusivity and equity in astronomy.

Awards and honors

 * 2006 Spitzer Space Telescope Postdoctoral Fellow
 * 2013 Eberly College of Science Outstanding Alumni Award
 * 2013 NASA Robert H. Goddard Award for Exceptional Achievement for Science
 * 2014 NASA Robert H. Goddard Award for Diversity and Equal Employment Opportunity
 * 2015 Goddard Space Flight Center Peer Award
 * 2018 John C. Lindsay Memorial Award for Space Science
 * 2021 Nature's 10 Ones to Watch in 2022
 * 2022 Out to Innovate LGBTQ+ Scientist of the Year
 * 2022 BBC 100 Women
 * 2022 Nature's 10
 * 2024 Presidential Medal of Freedom

Personal life
Rigby came out as lesbian in 2000. When she joined the University of Arizona as a graduate student, it was still against state law to be gay.