Lucian Walkowicz

JustSpace Alliance

Founder, Deputy Director

Dr. Lucian Walkowicz is the Founding Director of the DSFP, and an astronomer, movement artist, and educator. Their research seeks to understand where and how we might discover life in the universe, how stars influence a planet’s suitability for life, and the social impacts of space exploration. Over their 25+ years in astronomy, Walkowicz has contributed to major astronomical projects such as the Hubble Space Telescope, Sloan Digital Sky Survey, NASA’s Kepler Mission, and the Vera C. Rubin Observatory (where they served as the Chair of the Transients and Variable Stars Science Collaboration, the Science Collaboration Coordinator, and as a member of the Science Advisory Committee). 

Walkowicz holds a BS in Physics and Astronomy from Johns Hopkins University, an MS and PhD in Astronomy from the University of Washington. They held the Kepler Fellowship for the Study of Planet-Bearing Stars at UC Berkeley and the Henry Norris Russell Fellowship at Princeton, before becoming an astronomer at the Adler Planetarium in 2014. In 2017-2018, Walkowicz served as the 5th Baruch S. Blumberg NASA/Library of Congress Chair in Astrobiology, and subsequently co-founded the JustSpace Alliance to continue the work stemming from their time at the Library. They currently do their research and writing as part of the JustSpace Alliance, and teach at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Asteroid 205599 Walkowicz is named in honor of their contributions to the Sloan Digital Sky Survey.