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Sandra Faber
Summary
Sandra Moore Faber (born December 28, 1944) is an American astrophysicist known for her research on the evolution of galaxies. She is the University Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and works at the Lick Observatory. She has made discoveries linking the brightness of galaxies to the speed of stars within them and was the co-discoverer of the Faber–Jackson relation. Faber was also instrumental in designing the Keck telescopes in Hawaii.
Faber studied at Swarthmore College, majoring in Physics and minoring in Mathematics and Astronomy. She earned her bachelor's degree in 1966. She then earned her PhD in 1972 from Harvard University, specializing in Optical Observational Astronomy under the direction of I. John Danziger. During this time the only observatory open to her was the Kitt Peak National Observatory, which had inadequate technology for the complexity of her thesis.
Faber married Andrew Leigh Faber, a fellow Swarthmore physics major one year her junior, on June 9, 1967. They have two daughters, Robin and Holly.
In 1972, Faber joined the faculty of the Lick Observatory at University of California, Santa Cruz, becoming the first woman on staff. In 1976, Faber observed the relationship between the brightness and spectra of galaxies and the orbital speeds and motions of the stars within them. The law that resulted would become known as the Faber–Jackson relation, after herself and the co-author, graduate student Robert Jackson.
Three years later, Faber and collaborator John S. Gallagher published a paper collecting all of the evidence for the existence of dark matter that had been published at that point. In 1983, she published original research showing that dark matter was not composed of fast-moving neutrinos ("hot dark matter") and that instead, it was likely composed of slow-moving particles yet to be discovered ("cold dark matter").
Around 1984, Faber collaborated with Joel Primack, George Blumenthal, and Martin Rees to elucidate their theory of how dark matter was part of galaxy formation and evolution.
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