Alyssa Goodman is the Robert Wheeler Willson Professor of Applied Astronomy at Harvard, where she spends most of her time figuring out how to turn complex scientific data into things people can actually see, explore, and understand. At the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, she studies how stars—and the structures they form in—come to be, using 3D maps of our galaxy built from massive datasets collected by telescopes like Gaia.
Goodman is presently co-leader of the Milky Way 3D project and Principal Investigator of Cosmic Data Stories (CosmicDS), which brings real astronomical data into classrooms and public spaces through interactive storytelling. She also founded and leads The Prediction Project, a Harvard-wide program that traces how humans have tried to predict the future over time—from Ancient Mesopotamian entrails to AI.
A strong believer in open, visual, and collaborative science, Goodman helped create tools like glue and WorldWide Telescope to let researchers—and students—interactively explore huge, multidimensional datasets. Her team works at the intersection of astronomy, computer science, design, and education, developing immersive experiences in augmented and virtual reality, on screens, and even in planetariums.
Goodman’s contributions have been recognized with numerous honors, including the Pierce Prize from the American Astronomical Society, election as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Harvard Foundation’s “Scientist of the Year” award. She has serves on advisory boards for the National Academies, the National Science Foundation, and other organizations in the US and abroad committed to advancing science and society.