ITC Alum Jesse Han '25 Receives Award

ITC alum Dr. Jiwon (Jesse) Han was award the 2026 Robert J. Trumpler Award from the Astro Society in recognition of his "significant contributions to Galactic astronomy." The award is given to a recent PhD receipt whose research is considered "unusually important to astronomy." From the announcement: 

Through innovative observation and simulation, Han discovered that the surrounding dark matter and star halos are tilted. In his landmark paper, 'A tilted dark halo origin of the Galactic disk warp and flare,' he showed that the gravitational pull from a tiled and 'doubly broken' halo drives the disk’s warp. His findings, published in Nature Astronomy, exposed crucial clues on how hidden dark matter shapes our Galaxy, suggesting it may have experienced a dramatic merger with a smaller galaxy some 10 billion years ago. (Source)

Han received his PhD in astronomy and physics from Harvard University and is currently a Stanford Science Fellow at Sanford University. He was the 2025 receipt of the Eric R. Keto Prize, which is awarded each year for the best thesis in theoretical astrophysics by a student at the CfA, as selected by the Senior Members of the ITC.