Charlton honored with President's Award for Excellence in Academic Integration

Jane Charlton, professor of astronomy and astrophysics at Penn State University, has been selected to receive the 2015 President's Award for Excellence in Academic Integration. The award is given to faculty members who excel at integrating teaching, research, and service to the University. The award is presented by the Office of the President of the University, based on the recommendations of the President's Council and academic deans.

Charlton is being honored for her commitment to research, education of future researchers, innovative teaching, and public outreach. Charlton regularly involves undergraduate students in her research, many of whom have had significant research publications prior to graduation. She also mentors high-school students in summer internship programs. Charlton's creative approach to teaching includes developing a general-education astronomy course taught entirely through a video game. Charlton also created AstroFest, a four-day outreach event that includes lectures, science demonstrations, rooftop telescopes, and planetarium visits for more than 2,000 community members each year.

In her research, Charlton studies the formation and evolution of galaxies by charting the development and production of metals in the universe. Her research program has both theoretical components and observational components using data collected by ground-based observatories and NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. She learns about galaxies in different stages of development by studying the spectroscopic information picked up by the light emitted by quasars -- the most powerful type of galaxy nucleus -- as it travels across the universe. She also uses the spectra from quasars to study the physical conditions in the vicinity of the quasars and to learn how the central engines of quasars are fueled. In addition, Charlton surveys the interactions and mergers between dwarf galaxies to understand the mechanisms that are important to determine the size, shape, and origin of galaxies.

Charlton received the Annie Jump Cannon Special Commendation Honor from the American Astronomical Society in 1992. She was honored with the Penn State Faculty Associates Award for Teaching and Service in 1997.

Charlton earned a bachelor of science degree in chemistry and physics at Carnegie Mellon University in 1983. She earned a master's and a doctoral degree in astronomy and astrophysics at the University of Chicago in 1984 and 1987, respectively. Prior to joining the faculty at Penn State, Charlton was a research associate in astronomy at Cornell University from 1987 to 1989 and a research associate at the Steward Observatory of the University of Arizona from 1989 to 1992. She became assistant professor of astronomy and astrophysics at Penn State in 1992 and was promoted to associate professor in 1998 and to professor in 2003.