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| I am a professor and astronomer at the University of Denver (DU); I use she/her pronouns. I study how massive stars interact with their environments, both before and after they explode as supernovae. I am also the William Herschel Womble Chair of Astronomy and the Director of DU's historic Chamberlin Observatory. |
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| "Out in it" at the Grand Canyon | |
| 2023 May 05 — I am back from a challenging, fulfilling, exhilarating, once-in-a-lifetime Grand Canyon experience! So grateful to GCNP and the Grand Canyon Conservancy for making it possible. I led programs that encouraged park visitors to engage with the ideas of cycles and changes in the sky as well as preserving darkness as part of our environmental and cultural heritage. I also got to soak in the beauty and richness of the Canyon in satisfying detail. I took a zillion pictures and racked up a ton of stories, too many to publish here! I am thinking about making a special website just to document my time there. Meanwhile, you can watch several of my media appearances as Grand Canyon Astronomer in Residence here: Dr. Jennifer Hoffman at Grand Canyon Residency . This short "Minute Out In It" video released by the Grand Canyon National Park is one of my favorites from that list; it does a great job of capturing some of what it was like to be there and some of what I was trying to accomplish in my residency. |
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| DU SciTech summer camp 2023 | |
2023 March 20 — Great news: after a 4-year hiatus due to COVID and funding issues, we will offer the fourth iteration of the DU SciTech summer STEM camp for middle-school girls of color in June 2023!
I co-direct the camp along with colleagues Shannon Murphy and Robin Tinghitella from DU's biology department. Campers spend a week on the DU campus engaging with hands-on science and engineering activities including insect collecting, telescope viewing, coding, constructing circuits, and interacting with women in STEM at DU and beyond! In 2019, DU SciTech participants designed and carried out a scientific study investigating the plants that grow near campus, finding that streetlights encourage the growth of an invasive species called cheatgrass. Their results were published in a Ecology and Evolution (with 9 campers as co-authors) and highlighted in the journal's public blog and in Scientific American! We plan to include similar inquiry-based projects in 2023. 
DU SciTech campers and organizers in 2017 |
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| Sabrina DeSoto featured by DU News | |
| 2023 March 16 — Sabrina DeSoto, a Ph.D. student in my group, was profiled in a thoughtful and detailed DU feature article, Perspective Shift Spurs PhD Student to Teach Middle Schoolers Astronomy and Physics. I'm honored to be working with her!
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| Grand adventures ahead! | |
| 2023 January 25 — I'm beyond excited to share that I have been named the Grand Canyon Astronomer in Residence for March and April 2023, during my sabbatical! For 6 weeks, I will get to live on the South Rim and develop public astronomy programs for park guests, while also working on my own research. DU will be following my Grand Canyon activities at this page. Stay tuned on social media as well! UPDATE: Here is the view from the Verkamp's Visitor Center, where I am staying:  South Rim vista |
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| More news > |
| RECENT RESULTS | ||
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The University of Denver and Chamberlin Observatory reside on the traditional territories of the Arapaho, Cheyenne, and Ute peoples, who were the first to practice astronomy in what is now Colorado. DU's history is inextricably linked with the violent white supremacist colonization of these lands. To learn more about this history and DU's conflicted relationship with Indigenous populations, I recommend reading the John Evans Study Report. |
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Banner image: NGC 6164, ©2009 by Don Goldman. |
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