Grace Wolf-Chase
Bio
Grace Wolf-Chase holds a Bachelor’s degree in Physics from Cornell University and a Ph.D. in Astronomy from the University of Arizona. In 1994, she was married, moved to California to begin her first postdoctoral position as a National Research Council fellow at NASA/Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, and had her first child. Two years and two subsequent children later, she was awarded a University of California President’s postdoctoral fellowship at UC Riverside to study the earliest stages of star formation. In 1998, she accepted a “Tenure-Track Equivalent” position combining academic research at the University of Chicago with public education at the Adler Planetarium & Astronomy Museum. She spends roughly 40% of her time pursuing scientific research in the field of star formation at the University of Chicago, where she is a member of the Research Faculty, and 60% of her time serving Adler as an “Academic Liaison”, to help bridge the gap between the academic research community, educators, and the general public. At Adler, she serves as Project Director on exhibit development and sky show production teams, helps develop educational programs, and works with diverse audiences including educators, students, media, and the general public, to help bring the excitement of scientific research into informal and formal education. Her primary research interests are protostars, protostellar outflows, and the impact of outflows on the evolution of molecular clouds.