 For her doctoral thesis, Hewitt compiled the first major systematic survey of gravitational lenses. "Up to that point, gravitational lenses had been discovered accidentally here and there, and the systematic approach helped us begin to understand them. You know better what you've got if you don't discover them by accident," Hewitt observes. "There I was with a whole new research instrument and a whole new research topic in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by scientists from all over the world. It was terrific fun."
In 1986 she was hired as a postdoctoral associate in the Very Long Baseline Interferometry group at the MIT Haystack Observatory. She joined the MIT faculty in 1989 as an assistant professor of physics, where she continued to work on gravitational lenses, cosmology and surveys of transient astronomical radio emission. She also pioneered new astrophysical applications of radio astronomy, interferometry, and image and signal processing.
Since 2002, Hewitt has directed MIT's Kavli Center for Astrophysics and Space Research, formerly the Center for Space Research. The interdisciplinary center supports research in space science and engineering, astronomy and astrophysics. As Hewitt notes, the center provides an exciting marriage of science and technology. Its varied projects incorporate X-ray, optical, radio and planetary astronomy, theoretical astrophysics, space plasma physics, gravitational and cosmological physics, and theoretical plasma physics. |
