The Marrujo Foundation, established by Dan and Rosamaria Marrujo, has generously funded a three-year Astronomy Faculty Research Fellowship at Cal Poly’s College of Science and Mathematics. This fellowship enables faculty members to focus on student-involved research, relieving them from regular teaching duties.
Assistant Professor of Physics, Elizabeth Jeffery, will spearhead the project’s first year. The research aims to study the ages of stars, particularly white dwarf stars – the final stage of a low-mass star’s lifecycle. By understanding the cooling and fading of these stars, akin to coals from a campfire, Jeffery and her team plan to determine star ages. The project has been likened to an astronomy form of archaeology or paleontology.
Data for the research will be sourced from the Gaia satellite, a European Space Agency project that provides a detailed three-dimensional map of over a billion stars.
The Marrujo Foundation, devoted to advancing research in astronomy, astrophysics, and cosmology, aims to create a robust fellowship ecosystem that challenges existing space knowledge, opens new avenues, and impacts people’s lives globally.
Dan Marrujo, a Silicon Valley consultant, and former Chief Strategy Officer at the Defense Microelectronics Activity, envisions this project as an opportunity for students to pursue their passion while learning from world-class resources. He believes that the Foundation’s role is to facilitate transformative learning experiences that can catalyze future careers.
