Penny Sackett

Penny Sackett (b. 1956), physicist, astronomer and former Chief Scientist for Australia, gained her undergraduate degree in her home state of Nebraska, USA, before earning a PhD in theoretical physics at the University of Pittsburgh in 1984. While working for the US National Science Foundation, the Kapteyn Astronomical Institute in the Netherlands and the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study, she developed a specialisation in gravitational microlensing to search for extrasolar planets, as well as interests in dark matter and galactic structure. In 2002 she was appointed director of the Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the Australian National University. Responsible for the Mount Stromlo Observatory, she had to endure its destruction by bushfires in January 2003, and negotiations for the insurance payout and rebuilding of the heritage-listed facility. In 2006 she was one of an international team of 73 astronomers who discovered the first known earth-sized planet orbiting a normal star other than the Sun in the inner Milky Way. She also served on the board of directors for the Giant Magellan Telescope, a project to build an optical telescope many times more powerful than any currently in existence. Appointed the Chief Scientist for Australia in late 2008, Sackett remained an adjunct professor at ANU and continued to supervise research students. She resigned as Chief Scientist in 2011, announcing that she intended to contribute to science in other ways (she describes herself as physicist by training, an astronomer by profession and an educator by inclination). A dual citizen, Sackett has served on the AURA board of directors, which governs, among other astronomical centres, the Gemini Observatory and the Hubble Space Telescope Science Institute. She is an Elected International Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society and served for several years as a board member of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. Sackett is Chair of the ACT Climate Change Council, and a member of the Business Advisory Board of the ACT's Renewable Energy Innovation Fund.