Dr Julie McEnery: Project Scientist at the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope

Julie McEnery is the Project Scientist for the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. In this role, she is the scientific lead of a NASA Astrophysics flagship mission that will study the expansion history of the Universe, the evolution of cosmic structure and perform a statistical census of planets around other stars. Her scientific research focuses on the study of extreme high energy transients and the development of the ground and space based observatories needed to pursue this.  She is the senior scientist for high energy astrophysics at Goddard Space Flight Center, and co-director of the Joint Space Sciences Center between Goddard and the University of Maryland. In this episode, Ben and Julie discuss the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, it's timeline and how it compares to the JWST  'Instead of seeing deep, seeing wide'. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsor: Spaced Ventures: https://www.spacedventures.com/ to invest into shares of actual space startups! OUTLINE: Here's approximate timestamps for the episode. 00:16 Spaced Ventures 00:42 Introduction to Dr Julie Mc Enery 01:25 Working for NASA 03:15 How did Julie start her fascination with space? 04:30 Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope (NGRST) - what is it? 07:34 Importance of 'Nancy Grace' name 08:34 'Mother of Hubble' 09:06 Timeline for launch 10:33 'Day in the life' - current build stage (as of 2022) 12:33 Impact of JWST 13:50 'Instead of seeing deep, seeing wide' 15:07 Dark Energy and Dark Matter 19:53 Predictions about findings from NGRST/short puppy disturbance 🐶 22:19 NGRST searching for Exoplanets 28:30 Direct images of planets similar to our own! 29:08 Falcon Heavy launch/things to watch out for 31:40 Advice to young scientists and engineers Wrap up and socials 33:44 Wrap up and socials Follow Orbit Fab Website: https://roman.gsfc.nasa.gov/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/NASARoman Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NASARoman Stay connected with us! Use #Astroben across various social media platforms to engage with us! Website: www.astroben.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/astrobenpodcast/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/Gambleonit LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/astrobenpodcast/