Rate My Professor Anna Frebel

As an observational astrophysicist, Frebel specializes in discovering and analyzing the oldest, most metal-poor stars in the Milky Way halo and its dwarf satellite galaxies, employing high-resolution spectroscopy with the Magellan telescopes. This work illuminates stellar archaeology, near-field cosmology, the properties of the first stars, supernova nucleosynthesis, r-process enrichment, and the chemical evolution and assembly of the Milky Way. She has published over 160 papers in refereed journals, including notable works such as “R-process enrichment from a single event in an ancient dwarf galaxy” (Ji et al., Nature, 2016), “Near-field cosmology with extremely metal-poor stars” (Frebel & Norris, Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics, 2015), and “Nucleosynthetic signatures of the first stars” (Frebel et al., Nature, 2005). Additionally, she authored the popular science book “Searching for the Oldest Stars: Ancient Relics from the Early Universe” (Princeton University Press, 2015). Frebel impacts the field through public lectures, magazine articles, and by leading the LEAPS leadership program for MIT graduate students and postdocs.