University of Arizona Astrophysicist Erika Hamden Named 2026 Guggenheim Fellow

This week, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation has named Erika Hamden, Associate Professor of Astronomy at the University of Arizona and Director of the Arizona Space Institute, a 2026 Guggenheim Fellow. Hamden is among 223 individuals appointed to the Foundation's 101st class of fellows — selected from nearly 5,000 applicants across 55 disciplines — in recognition of both outstanding prior achievement and exceptional promise.

Established in 1925, the Guggenheim Fellowship supports artists, scholars, and scientists to pursue independent work "under the freest possible conditions." Since its founding, the Foundation has awarded nearly $450 million in fellowships to more than 19,000 individuals, among them Nobel laureates, Pulitzer Prize winners, and recipients of the Fields Medal. This year, applications in the sciences rose by 86 percent, making selection among the most competitive in the program's history.

Hamden's research sits at the frontier of astronomical instrumentation. Her lab is developing next-generation Skipper CCD detectors — silicon-based sensors with extraordinarily low noise capable of distinguishing individual photons — that she believes will open up entirely new observational territory in ultraviolet astronomy. By reducing detector noise to levels comparable to, or below, the signals from extremely faint cosmic objects, these sensors will enable astronomers to study diffuse hydrogen gas and other structures in the universe that are currently undetectable. Hamden plans to deploy these detectors on future space missions and will use the fellowship to think expansively about the long-term future of her program.

"Being named a Guggenheim Fellow feels pretty incredible,” Hamden said. “The detector development we do in my lab is enabling missions to observe incredibly faint things that are basically out of reach right now.”

Hamden is the Principal Investigator of the Eos Mission, a NASA Small Explorer class UV space telescope to be proposed in 2026, and the Deputy Principal Investigator of Aspera, a NASA Small Satellite UV telescope expected to launch into orbit in early 2027. Both missions are designed to observe stars, galaxies, and the diffuse gas that flows between them in ultraviolet light — wavelengths that can only be studied from space. She previously built FIREBall-2, a pioneering NASA-supported UV-spectrograph balloon mission designed to map the circumgalactic medium from the Earth’s stratosphere rather than from space. Hamden directs the UA Space Institute, hosts the Arizona Public Media television series "New Frontiers," and is the author of the popular science book Weird Universe.

The freedom that the Guggenheim Fellowship grants will allow Erika to think beyond her past and current work. “I have to start planting the seeds now for the bigger ideas and projects I want to pursue next,” she said.

Hamden is the latest in a line of University of Arizona astronomers to receive this honor. Previous Steward Observatory scientists recognized by the Guggenheim Foundation include Xiaohui Fan, whose fellowship supported his research on the universe's most distant quasars; Feryal Özel, whose fellowship advanced her work on neutron stars and black holes — contributing foundational research to the team that produced the first-ever image of a black hole; Dennis Zaritsky for his work in extragalactic observational astronomy; and Ann Zabludoff, whose fellowship supported her work in using gravitational lenses to magnifying the faint light of some of the earliest galaxies in the universe.

“Erika’s success in research and outreach is a wonderful convergence of talent, passion, and effort coming together to accomplish great things,” said Buell Jannuzi, Head of the Department of Astronomy and Director of Steward Observatory. “We are pleased to provide the environment and support that enables this kind of achievement among our incredibly hardworking astronomers.”

Hamden is receiving this year’s Guggenheim Fellowship among a cohort of painters, poets, novelists, and filmmakers—including Elaine Romero, a playwright and professor in the University of Arizona School of Theatre, Film and Television. "A lot of the people who get the fellowship are in the arts," Hamden said. "It's really unusual for a fellowship to recognize that science is also an extremely creative process — that scientists and artists are, in that way, the same."

Read more at University of Arizona News.