Pamela L. Gay facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Pamela L. Gay
Pamela Gay at Skepticon Australia in 2018
Born	(1973-12-12) December 12, 1973 (age 51) California, United States
Education	Michigan State University (BS) University of Texas at Austin (PhD)
Occupation	Astronomy
Employer	Planetary Science Institute, Edwardsville, Illinois
Known for	Astronomy, education, podcasting

Pamela L. Gay (born December 12, 1973) is an American astronomer, teacher, podcaster, and writer. She is famous for her work in astronomy podcasts and for creating citizen science projects. These projects let everyday people help with real science research.

Pamela works as a senior education and communication specialist and senior scientist for the Planetary Science Institute. She loves to study astronomy data and see how citizen science projects make a difference. She has also appeared on TV shows about space.

Pamela helps make science popular and easy to understand. She leads a project called CosmoQuest. This project lets people get involved in astronomy research. She also travels the world, talking about science and how to think like a scientist. She shares her knowledge through educational podcasts too.

Pamela Gay's Early Life and Career

Pamela Gay was born in California. Later, her family moved to Westford, Massachusetts. She went to high school there at Westford Academy.

She earned her first degree, a Bachelor of Science (BS), in astrophysics from Michigan State University in 1996. Then, she got her PhD in astronomy from the University of Texas at Austin in 2002.

Today, Pamela is a senior education and communication specialist and senior scientist at the Planetary Science Institute. Before this, she worked as the director of technology and citizen science for the Astronomical Society of the Pacific. She was also a research professor at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. Pamela was even on the board of directors for the American Association of Variable Star Observers. She led their education committee too.

In 2009, Pamela helped lead the United States' efforts for the International Year of Astronomy. This was a worldwide event to celebrate astronomy.

Pamela Gay's Research Work

Pamela's research mainly focuses on how to get people excited about science. She looks at how media and citizen scientists can help. She also studies how to show and understand large amounts of data. This helps the public work with scientists to analyze big data sets.

She also studies special stars called RR Lyrae stars. She works with both professional and amateur astronomers around the world to collect important information about these stars.

Even though Pamela is known for her citizen science and teaching work, much of her research is in galactic astronomy. This is the study of our own galaxy, the Milky Way.

Pamela's work with David Lambert helped confirm that magnesium (Mg) isotopes mostly come from huge stars. They also showed that some stars with unusual make-up have special amounts of magnesium isotopes.

Pamela has also studied how podcasting helps teach astronomy. She used her own podcast, Slacker Astronomy, as an example. Other researchers have used her study to see how podcasts can help students learn, especially when they have little time or slow internet.

Pamela's study, Exploring the Motivations of Citizen Science Volunteers, looked at the Zooniverse project. This project grew from the Galaxy Zoo idea, which started in 2007. Scientists who read her study found that people loved the project. They made over 60 million classifications!

CosmoQuest: A Citizen Science Project

Pamela Gay is the director of the citizen science project called CosmoQuest. This project works with NASA missions. These include NASA's Dawn mission, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), MESSENGER, and Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) teams.

CosmoQuest aims to "build a series of projects that map the surfaces of rocky worlds." It also explores the atmospheres of planets and small objects in our solar system.

The project lets users help identify, map, and describe features on planet surfaces. They use visual data from NASA missions. For example, counting craters is very useful, but it's hard for computers to do. People can identify features like the size and wear of craters. They send this information back to CosmoQuest, where it's combined with what other citizen scientists find.

CosmoQuest projects have included Planet Mappers, Moon Mappers, and Asteroid Mappers. There's also a future project called Planet Investigators. You can even use a mobile app called Moon Mappers Crater Decay as part of the Moon Mappers project.

CosmoQuest also offers workshops for teachers. They provide online astronomy courses too.

Pamela Gay's Educational Outreach

Pamela Gay at the USA Science and Engineering Festival in Washington, DC, April 29, 2012

Pamela Gay loves to make astronomy popular. She encourages people to work together to create a "community of science" among the public. She often joins the Virtual Star Party. This is a weekly video show with professional and amateur astronomers. Google even featured it in a documentary in 2012.

Pamela also helps with scientific skepticism outreach. This means encouraging people to think critically and question things. In 2011, she spoke at The Amaz!ng Meeting (TAM) in Las Vegas, Nevada. She was on a panel with famous people like Bill Nye and Neil deGrasse Tyson. They talked about "Our Future in Space."

At TAM 2012, Pamela spoke about how individuals can make positive changes. She encouraged people to promote scientific teamwork. Pamela has also written about her own experiences with gender bias in science.

Pamela has spoken about astronomy at DragonCon in Atlanta, Georgia, in 2012 and 2013. She talked about multiverses and the "Limits of Skepticism" in a panel discussion.

Pamela Gay's Podcasting Work

Gay recording one of her podcast episodes.

Pamela co-hosts the Astronomy Cast podcast with Fraser Cain. This educational show started in September 2006. It covers many topics, like the solar system, black holes, and common misunderstandings about astronomy. Fraser Cain says they try to share "not only what we know, but how we know what we know."

Pamela was also one of the people who started Slacker Astronomy. She was a voice on the show from February 2005 until it ended its first run in September 2006.

In 2008, Pamela started thinking about new media programs for 2009. This was the International Year of Astronomy (IYA). She talked with Michael Koppelman from Slacker Astronomy and Phil Plait from Bad Astronomy. This led to the 365 Days Of Astronomy podcast. The plan was to release one episode every day for the entire year of 2009.

One main goal of the IYA was to make astronomy affordable for everyone. For example, special telescopes called Galileoscopes were sold online for only $10 each. Pamela said, "You can actually see the rings of Saturn" with them. She also worked on a group that focused on new media. She said, "We need to communicate all these ideas and get people who don't want to go outside involved online."

Since 2009, Pamela has been a judge for the Parsec Awards. These awards celebrate great science fiction podcasts and podcast novels.

Awards and Honors

• American Humanist Association's 2019 Isaac Asimov Science Award
• Sigma Xi Researcher of the Year Award for Southern Illinois University Edwardsville – 2012
• Outstanding Science Educator of the Year Award, The Academy of Science – St. Louis – 2012
• "Best Infotainment" Parsec Award for Astronomy Cast – Finalist 2007 – 2009, 2011 – 2012
• "Best Infotainment" Parsec Award for 365 Days of Astronomy – Finalist 2010 – 2012, Winner 2009

Pamela Gay's Personal Life

Pamela Gay lives in southern Illinois with her husband. She also loves horse riding.

Pamela was born in California. She said one early inspiration was seeing the trails left by the space shuttle as it landed at Edwards Air Force Base. She also watched TV images from the Voyager missions passing Jupiter in 1979 when she was five.

When she was in second grade, Pamela moved with her parents to Westford, Massachusetts. She describes it as a "fairly small town." It was great because it was rural, with dark skies perfect for stargazing. The town is also home to Haystack Observatory, where she worked during her last year of high school.

Pamela Gay's Media Appearances

Pamela Gay has appeared as herself in different TV documentary series.

See also

In Spanish: Pamela L. Gay para niños