Alicia Margarita Soderberg (born 1977) is an American astrophysicist

Astrophysics

Astrophysics is the branch of astronomy that deals with the physics of the universe, including the physical properties of celestial objects, as well as their interactions and behavior...

 who is an assistant professor of Astronomy at Harvard University

Harvard University

Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

 and a postdoctoral fellow at the Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics whose research focuses on supernova

Supernova

A supernova is a stellar explosion that is more energetic than a nova. It is pronounced with the plural supernovae or supernovas. Supernovae are extremely luminous and cause a burst of radiation that often briefly outshines an entire galaxy, before fading from view over several weeks or months...

e.

Born in Boston

Boston

Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...

, Soderberg was raised in Falmouth, Massachusetts

Falmouth, Massachusetts

Falmouth is a town in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, United States; Barnstable County is coextensive with Cape Cod. The population was 31,531 at the 2010 census....

 on Cape Cod

Cape Cod

Cape Cod, often referred to locally as simply the Cape, is a cape in the easternmost portion of the state of Massachusetts, in the Northeastern United States...

, where she attended Falmouth High School

Falmouth High School

Falmouth High School is a public high school located in the town of Falmouth, Massachusetts. The school serves roughly 1,300 students in grades 9-12. Over the past few years, Falmouth High School has gone through major renovations. Up until 1973, the school was named Lawrence High School and...

 and spent summers at the nearby Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution is a private, nonprofit research and higher education facility dedicated to the study of all aspects of marine science and engineering and to the education of marine researchers. Established in 1930, it is the largest independent oceanographic research...

 studying the effect of water pollution on coastal ponds. She attended Bates College

Bates College

Bates College is a highly selective, private liberal arts college located in Lewiston, Maine, in the United States. and was most recently ranked 21st in the nation in the 2011 US News Best Liberal Arts Colleges rankings. The college was founded in 1855 by abolitionists...

, where she graduated with a Bachelor of Science

Bachelor of Science

A Bachelor of Science is an undergraduate academic degree awarded for completed courses that generally last three to five years .-Australia:In Australia, the BSc is a 3 year degree, offered from 1st year on...

 degree in 2000 with a double major in Math and Physics and participated during the summer in programs at the Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Kitt Peak National Observatory

Kitt Peak National Observatory

The Kitt Peak National Observatory is a United States astronomical observatory located on 2,096 m Kitt Peak of the Quinlan Mountains in the Arizona-Sonoran Desert on the Tohono O'odham Nation, southwest of Tucson...

 in Arizona, the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory

Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory

The Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory is a complex of astronomical telescopes and instruments located at 30.169 S, 70.804 W, approximately 80 km to the East of La Serena, Chile at an altitude of 2200 metres. The complex is part of the National Optical Astronomy Observatory along with Kitt...

 in Chile

Chile

Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...

, at the Arecibo Observatory

Arecibo Observatory

The Arecibo Observatory is a radio telescope near the city of Arecibo in Puerto Rico. It is operated by SRI International under cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation...

 in Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico , officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico , is an unincorporated territory of the United States, located in the northeastern Caribbean, east of the Dominican Republic and west of both the United States Virgin Islands and the British Virgin Islands.Puerto Rico comprises an...

 and at the Los Alamos National Laboratory

Los Alamos National Laboratory

Los Alamos National Laboratory is a United States Department of Energy national laboratory, managed and operated by Los Alamos National Security , located in Los Alamos, New Mexico...

 in New Mexico

New Mexico

New Mexico is a state located in the southwest and western regions of the United States. New Mexico is also usually considered one of the Mountain States. With a population density of 16 per square mile, New Mexico is the sixth-most sparsely inhabited U.S...

. She earned a Master of Science

Master of Science

A Master of Science is a postgraduate academic master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is typically studied for in the sciences including the social sciences.-Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay:...

 from the University of Cambridge

University of Cambridge

The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...

 in Applied Mathematics. She was awarded her doctorate in Astrophysics from the California Institute of Technology

California Institute of Technology

The California Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Pasadena, California, United States. Caltech has six academic divisions with strong emphases on science and engineering...

 under the guidance of advisor Shrinivas Kulkarni

Shrinivas Kulkarni

Shrinivas R. Kulkarni FRS is a professor of astrophysics and planetary science at California Institute of Technology. He is on the Space Interferometry Mission science team and is the director of optical observatories at California Institute of Technology, including Palomar and Keck.Kulkarni is...

, where her thesis used data gathered from the Palomar Observatory

Palomar Observatory

Palomar Observatory is a privately owned observatory located in San Diego County, California, southeast of Pasadena's Mount Wilson Observatory, in the Palomar Mountain Range. At approximately elevation, it is owned and operated by the California Institute of Technology...

 and the Very Large Array

Very Large Array

The Very Large Array is a radio astronomy observatory located on the Plains of San Agustin, between the towns of Magdalena and Datil, some fifty miles west of Socorro, New Mexico, USA...

 to provide a better understanding of gamma ray burst

Gamma ray burst

Gamma-ray bursts are flashes of gamma rays associated with extremely energetic explosions that have been observed in distant galaxies. They are the most luminous electromagnetic events known to occur in the universe. Bursts can last from ten milliseconds to several minutes, although a typical...

s and stripped core-collapse supernovae

Type Ib and Ic supernovae

Types Ib and Ic supernovae are categories of stellar explosions that are caused by the core collapse of massive stars. These stars have shed their outer envelope of hydrogen, and, when compared to the spectrum of Type Ia supernovae, they lack the absorption line of silicon...

.

On February 18, 2006, Soderberg was a member of a group of researchers who detected the gamma-ray burst GRB 060218

GRB 060218

GRB 060218 was a gamma-ray burst with unusual characteristics never seen before. This GRB was detected by the Swift satellite on February 18, 2006, and its name is derived from the date...

 located 440 million light years (135 Mpc

Parsec

The parsec is a unit of length used in astronomy. It is about 3.26 light-years, or just under 31 trillion kilometres ....

) away in the constellation Aries

Aries (constellation)

Aries is one of the constellations of the zodiac, located between Pisces to the west and Taurus to the east. Its name is Latin for ram, and its symbol is , representing a ram's horns...

. The detection of the associated supernova SN2006aj provided the best evidence to date tying gamma-ray bursts and supernovae.

Soderberg and her colleagues detected the supernova SN 2008D

SN 2008D

SN 2008D is a supernova detected with NASA's Swift X-ray telescope. The explosion of the supernova precursor star, in the spiral galaxy NGC 2770 SN 2008D is a supernova detected with NASA's Swift X-ray telescope. The explosion of the supernova precursor star, in the spiral galaxy NGC 2770 SN 2008D...

 as it was occurring on January 9, 2008, using data from NASA

NASA

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...

's Swift Gamma-Ray Burst Mission

Swift Gamma-Ray Burst Mission

The Swift Gamma-Ray Burst Mission consists of a robotic spacecraft called Swift, which was launched into orbit on 20 November 2004, 17:16:00 UTC on a Delta II 7320-10C expendable launch vehicle. Swift is managed by the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, and was developed by an international...

 X-ray

X-ray

X-radiation is a form of electromagnetic radiation. X-rays have a wavelength in the range of 0.01 to 10 nanometers, corresponding to frequencies in the range 30 petahertz to 30 exahertz and energies in the range 120 eV to 120 keV. They are shorter in wavelength than UV rays and longer than gamma...

 space telescope, from a precursor star in the spiral galaxy

Spiral galaxy

A spiral galaxy is a certain kind of galaxy originally described by Edwin Hubble in his 1936 work The Realm of the Nebulae and, as such, forms part of the Hubble sequence. Spiral galaxies consist of a flat, rotating disk containing stars, gas and dust, and a central concentration of stars known as...

 NGC 2770

NGC 2770

NGC 2770 is a type SASc spiral galaxy located about 88 million light years away, in the constellation Lynx.It has been referred to as the 'Supernova Factory' as three supernovas have occurred there recently: SN 1999eh, SN 2007uy, and SN 2008D...

, 88 million light years away (27 Mpc). They alerted eight other orbiting and ground-based observatories to record the event. The team was able to catch the supernova in action because they had been making observations of NGC 2770 to observe supernova SN 2007uy

SN 2007uy

SN 2007UY was a supernova that occurred in the spiral galaxy NGC 2770. It was discovered by Yoji Hirose on December 31, 2007. While interesting in its own right, it was overshadowed by SN 2008D, a supernova whose burst was observed serendipitously while SN 2007UY was being studied by Swift,...

.