- Amy Mainzer is an American astronomer, specializing in astrophysical instrumentation and infrared astronomy. She holds a Bachelors degree with honors in Phyisics, and Masters and Ph.D degrees in Astronomy. Dr. Mainzer is a research scientist working on different projects at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, including the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), the Near Earth Object Camera (NEOCam), and NEOWISE mission to study asteroids and comets using the reactivated WISE satellite. She previously worked for Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Center on the Spitzer Space Telescope.
- IMDb mini biography by: randy@ieee.org
- Asteroid "234750 Amymainzer" was named after her. It is an outer main belt asteroid discovered by NEAT in 2002.
- Discovered the asteroid 316201 on June 23 2010 and named it "316201 Malala", or "2010 ML48" after Malala Yousafzai. Mainzer decided Malala deserved to be immortalized after reading her story of activism promoting the right of girls' to go to school in Pakistan. The asteroid is about 4 kilometers in diameter with a very dark surface (the color of printer toner) and it circles the sun between Mars and Jupiter every 5.5 years.
- Graduated from Stanford University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Physics with honors in 1995.
- Graduated from California Institute of Technology with a Masters degree in Astronomy in 2001.
- Graduated from University of California, Los Angeles with a Ph.D in Astronomy in 2003.
- Don't be afraid to be curious. Don't be afraid to ask silly questions. Why is the sky blue? It turns out silly questions have profound and interesting answers. That at its heart is what science is all about. It's understanding nature and not being afraid to ask why.
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