Carrie Nugent (born 1984) is anassistant professor of computational physics and planetary science atOlin College. She studiesnear-Earth objects. She is also a popular science communicator, and is a SeniorTED Fellow. Theasteroid8801 Nugent was named after her.

Nugent studied atMira Costa High School, graduating in the class of 2002.^[1][2] She earned an undergraduate degree inphysics.^[3] She studied geophysics atUniversity of California, Los Angeles, and earned her PhD in 2013.^[4] She was supervised byJean-Luc Margot and investigated theYarkovsky effect.^[5] She served as anInfrared Processing and Analysis Center (IPAC) Fellow from 2015.^[6] She worked at the Summer App Space, aLos Angeles based apprenticeship for people to learn programming whilst working on space projects.^[7]

Nugent worked with the Near-Earth Object part of theNASAWide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, known asNEOWISE.^[8][9] She was part of theNear-Earth Object Camera asteroid hunting teams.^[10] For this, Nugent was awarded theNASA Group Achievement Award. She believesasteroid impact is the onlynatural disaster that we can prevent.^[11] In 2015 she named an asteroid afterMalala Yousafzai.^[12]

Nugent joined the faculty atOlin College as an assistant professor of computational physics and planetary science in 2018.^[13][14] She works onasteroid detection, and focuses on the identification of asteroids that could be a threat toEarth.^[15]

Nugent was aAAAS Mass Media Fellow in 2008.^[16] She was selected as a TED Fellow in 2016, and a Senior TED Fellow in 2018.^[17] Nugent delivered aTED talkAdventures of an asteroid hunter at theTED conference in 2016.^[18] After herTED talk, Nugent wrote the book Asteroid Hunters withSimon & Schuster.^[19][20] The talk was also used in aTED-Ed video.^[21] In her spare time she produces the podcastSpacePod.^[22] The podcast involves short episodes (15 minute in length) featuring relaxed conversations withspace explorers.^[23] She serves as one ofThe Planetary Society experts.^[24] A question about Nugent's research was once included inJeopardy!.^[25]

• 2012NEOWISE TeamNASA Group Achievement Award
• 20138801 Nugent named in her honour^[26]
• 2017Mira Costa High School Alumni Hall of Fame^[1][2]
• 2018TED Senior Fellow^[27]
• 2019Carl Sagan Medal^[14][28]

Nugent, Carrie (2017).Asteroid Hunters. Simon & Schuster Ltd.ISBN 9781471162398.

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• Living people
• University of California, Los Angeles alumni
• Olin College faculty
• American science communicators
• 1984 births
• American women scientists
• Mira Costa High School alumni
• 21st-century American women academics
• 21st-century American academics

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