On November 11, Wright Lab welcomed Harvey Moseley, a new research affiliate, to the Wright Lab community. Moseley gave a talk called “From astrophysics to quantum computing – living through a revolution;” held a lunch discussion with students, postdocs, research staff, and faculty; and toured several Wright Lab research laboratories.
Moseley’s career has been focused on conceiving and developing technologies to advance cosmology and astrophysics, and he has long experience with complex systems operating at cryogenic temperatures. In addition to his research affiliate role at Wright Lab, Moseley is currently the Vice President of Hardware Engineering of Quantum Circuits, Inc.
Moseley was a key member of the Cosmic Background Explorer science and development team, whose leaders Mather and Smoot won the 2006 Nobel Physics prize for its groundbreaking measurements of the early universe. Moseley also invented and led the advance of cryogenic X-ray microcalorimeters, which are central to the scientific capability of current and future X-ray astrophysics missions. He led the creation of microshutter arrays that provide multi-object spectroscopy on the James Webb Space Telescope. This innovation will allow the JWST to study of the evolution of the earliest galaxies.
Moseley has received the Joseph Weber prize of the American Astronomical Society, the George Goddard Prize of the international society of optics and photonics, SPIE, the 2022 James Craig Watson Medal from the National Academy of Sciences, and was conferred the rank of Distinguished Senior Professional by President Obama.
Pictures from Friday’s event can be found on our Flickr page here.