Marcel Agüeros

Marcel Agüeros is a Professor of astronomy at Columbia University and an internationally recognized expert in stellar astrophysics whose group studies the rotation and magnetic activity of Sun-like stars to understand their evolution. A native New Yorker and a Columbia alumnus, Marcel received his Ph.D. from the University of Washington in 2006, returned to Columbia as a National Science Foundation Astronomy & Astrophysics Postdoctoral Fellow that year, and joined the faculty in 2010.

In nearly 30 years of interacting with learners from the elementary to graduate levels, he has worked to create systemic changes that address the historic underrepresentation of women and minorities in science. As a graduate student at the University of Washington, he founded the Pre-Major in Astronomy Program (Pre-MAP) for underrepresented first-year undergraduates, now in its 19th year, and later launched and led Columbia’s successful postbaccalaureate Bridge to the Ph.D. Program in STEM. In 2016, Marcel received the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers from President Obama for “his groundbreaking research in stellar astrophysics, and for his restless desire to ensure that minority students in sciences become tomorrow’s leaders.