astronomy

Rebecca Jensen-Clem

Rebecca Jensen-Clem is a astronomy topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Rebecca Jensen-Clem rather than just read about it. In short: Rebecca Jensen-Clem is an American astronomer at the University of California, Santa Cruz whose research focuses on extreme adaptive optics and high-contrast imaging for the direct detection and characterization of exoplanets. In 2025 she shared the New Horizons in Physics Prize for demonstrating new extreme adaptive-optics techniques that will enable the direct detection of the smallest exoplanets.

Key takeaways

Rebecca Jensen-Clem belongs to astronomy; place it in that map before memorising details.
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Reproduce the core statement of Rebecca Jensen-Clem from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Rebecca Jensen-Clem is an American astronomer at the University of California, Santa Cruz whose research focuses on extreme adaptive optics and high-contrast imaging for the direct detection and characterization of exoplanets. In 2025 she shared the New Horizons in Physics Prize for demonstrating new extreme adaptive-optics techniques that will enable the direct detection of the smallest exoplanets.

Early life and education Jensen-Clem earned a B.S. degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2008–2012) and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in astronomy from the California Institute of Technology (2012–2017).

Career and research From 2017 to 2020 Jensen-Clem was a Miller Research Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley, hosted by astronomer James Graham. In 2020 she joined the faculty at UC Santa Cruz, where she leads the Santa Cruz Extreme Adaptive Optics Laboratory (SEAL), a visible/near-infrared testbed for wavefront sensing and control, coronagraphy, and predictive control for segmented-aperture telescopes. Her work advances extreme adaptive optics for high-contrast imaging on large ground-based telescopes, including on-sky development for the Keck II AO system and laboratory development on SEAL. She and collaborators have reported results in predictive wavefront control and related techniques for coronagraphic exoplanet imaging. Jensen-Clem is a co-investigator on the SCALES (Slicer Combined with Array of Lenslets for Exoplanet Spectroscopy) instrument for the W. M. Keck Observatory, aimed at discovering and characterizing cold exoplanets in the 2–5 μm band, and has worked with collaborators on the Keck Planet Imager and Characterizer (KPIC), a high-resolution instrument for directly imaged exoplanets. In addition to her faculty role, Jensen-Clem has led the UC Santa Cruz Center for Adaptive Optics since 2022, overseeing programs including the annual AO Summer School and community training activities.

Awards and honors New Horizons in Physics Prize (2025), shared with Sebastiaan Haffert and Maaike van Kooten, "for demonstrating new extreme adaptive optics techniques that will allow the direct detection of the smallest exoplanets." Miller Research Fellowship, University of California, Berkeley (2017–2020).

Selected publications Jensen-Clem, R. et al. "A new standard for assessing the performance of high-contrast imaging systems." (2017). Jensen-Clem, R. et al. "The Santa Cruz Extreme AO Lab (SEAL): Design and First Light." (2021). Skemer, A. et al. "Design of SCALES: A 2–5 μm Coronagraphic Integral Field Spectrograph for Keck Observatory." (2022). Jovanovic, N. et al. "Technical description and performance of the phase II version of KPIC." JATIS 11 (1), 015005 (2025).

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Rebecca Jensen-Clem

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Rebecca Jensen-Clem claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In astronomy, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Rebecca Jensen-Clem before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Rebecca Jensen-Clem ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Rebecca Jensen-Clem

In research: Rebecca Jensen-Clem appears in astronomy research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Rebecca Jensen-Clem in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Rebecca Jensen-Clem is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics American astronomers, California Institute of Technology alumni, Living people, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Rebecca Jensen-Clem outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Rebecca Jensen-Clem in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Rebecca Jensen-Clem means in your own words.
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Frequently asked questions

What is Rebecca Jensen-Clem in simple terms?

Why does Rebecca Jensen-Clem matter?

Because it connects several astronomy ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Rebecca Jensen-Clem?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Rebecca Jensen-Clem.