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| Local astronomy enthusiasts turn out for an event featuring a model of JWST presented by Nobel Prize in Physics laureate, Dr. John C. Mather, and the program manager for JWST at Northrop Grumman, Scott P. Willoughby. |
The scientists who eventually get to peer out at the universe with NASA's powerful new James Webb Space Telescope will be the lucky ones whose research proposals made it through a highly competitive selection process.
But those that didn't make the cut this time can at least know that they got a fair shot, thanks to lessons learned from another famous NASA observatory.
Webb's selection process was carefully designed to reduce the effect of unconscious biases or prejudices by forcing decision-makers to focus on the scientific merit of a proposal rather than who submitted it.
"They assess every one of those proposals. They read them. They don't know who wrote them," explains Heidi Hammel, an interdisciplinary scientist with the James Webb Space Telescope. "These proposals are evaluated in a dual-anonymous way, so that all you can see is the science."
This is a recent innovation in doling out observing time on space telescopes. And it's a change that came about only after years of hard work done by astronomers who were concerned that not everyone who wanted to use the Hubble Space Telescope was getting equal consideration.
Learn more about the "blinded" review process and how this method helped narrow the gender gap in accepted JWST proposals at:
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