Marc Postman

Postman served on several science working groups exploring the capabilities of future large optical / near infrared telescopes on the ground and in space. He is the Principal Investigator for a NASA Strategic Mission Concept Study called the Advanced Technology Large-Aperture Space Telescope, a possible successor to the Hubble Space Telescope. He was a member of the Hubble Space Telescope Advanced Camera for Surveys investigation team and project scientist for the STScI Digitized Sky Survey program. He has also served on the Council of the American Astronomical Society and on the Committee for the Status of Women in Astronomy. Postman is also the Principal Investigator of the HST multi-cycle treasury program Cluster Lensing and Supernova survey with Hubble, a study of dark matter in clusters of galaxies.

Postman attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as an undergraduate from 1978 to 1981, receiving a S.B. in Physics in 1981. He then went on to obtain his Ph.D. in Astronomy at Harvard University, working with Dr. Margaret Geller. After receiving his Ph.D. in 1986, he was a postdoctoral fellow working with Prof. James E. Gunn in Princeton University’s Department of Astronomy. In 1989, he joined the scientific research staff at the Space Telescope Science Institute.

Marc Postman is the son of educator, author and cultural critic, Neil Postman.

Postman received the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA)’s Outstanding Scientific Achievement Award in 1993 and again in 2013.[2] Asteroid 166746 Marcpostman discovered by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey at Apache Point Observatory in 2002, was named in his honor.[3] The official naming citation was published by the Minor Planet Center on 27 January 2013 (M.P.C. 82401).[4]

He was elected a Legacy Fellow of the American Astronomical Society in 2020.[5]

• Marc Postman's web page at STScI
• ATLAST Strategic Mission Concept web page