QnAs with Ewine F. van Dishoeck

Abstract

In the last 15 years, two major international projects—the Herschel Space Observatory and the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA)—have transformed researchers’ ability to investigate interstellar space at the farthest reaches of the universe. The 2018 recipient of the James Craig Watson Medal of the National Academy of Sciences, Ewine F. van Dishoeck, has been involved in both projects from their inception. van Dishoeck’s research has revealed the chemistry of the cosmos on both macroscopic and microscopic levels, detailing the formation of stars and planets as well as the molecular composition of interstellar clouds, dust, and disks. Her work holds tantalizing clues about the development of water and organic matter—the building blocks of life as we know it—on Earth as well as on exoplanets. A professor of molecular astrophysics at Leiden University in The Netherlands, as well as the former director of Leiden’s Raymond and Beverly Sackler Laboratory for Astrophysics, van Dishoeck was elected as a foreign associate to the National Academy of Sciences in 2001. PNAS recently spoke to van Dishoeck about her research. Ewine F. van Dishoeck. Image courtesy of Elodie Burrillon (photographer). > PNAS:You started working on the European Space Agency’s …