Rachel Somerville has been named the inaugural holder of the George A. and Margaret M. Downsbrough Chair in Astrophysics at Rutgers University. Professor Somerville joined the Rutgers faculty this past summer. She was an associate research professor at Johns Hopkins University and an associate astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute, the organization that schedules the usage of the Hubble Space Telescope.
Professor Somerville is a graduate of Reed College in Portland, Oregon. She earned a Ph.D. from the University of California at Santa Cruz.
The endowed chair is funded by a $3 million gift from the estate of George Downsbrough, who, in 1936, was the second student at Rutgers to earn a Ph.D. in physics.