Steward Observatory’s Kate Alexander and Carl Fields Win Prestigious Scialog Awards
Steward Observatory's Kate Alexander and Carl Fields are recipients of the 2025 Scialog Collaborative Innovation Awards
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Two University of Arizona astronomers have been recognized with prestigious awards to advance groundbreaking research using the Vera C. Rubin Observatory's Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST).
Dr. Kate Alexander and Dr. Carl Fields, both assistant professors in the Department of Astronomy and assistant astronomers at Steward Observatory, are among just 19 scientists nationwide to receive 2025 Scialog Collaborative Innovation Awards. The awards, totaling $1,254,000 across seven research teams, support high-risk, high-reward projects that will leverage early data from the Rubin Observatory.
“I’m thrilled that the promising research of Carl Fields and Kate Alexander is being supported by the Scialog Awards Research Corporation and their collaborators are sponsoring,” said Buell Jannuzi, Head of the Department of Astronomy and Director of Steward Observatory. “Both Carl and Kate are talented and creative scientists and I look forward to seeing what they and their collaborators will achieve with the support of this award.”
Kate Alexander
Alexander's project, "Unveiling High-Redshift Tidal Disruption Events in Rubin LSST Data," will explore some of the universe's most dramatic events: when supermassive black holes tear apart and consume stars. Working alongside collaborator Dr. Igor Andreoni of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Alexander will use LSST data to detect and study these violent cosmic encounters at unprecedented distances.
"I'm grateful to RCSA for this opportunity and excited to see what we can discover with Rubin!" said Alexander.
Alexander specializes in time-domain astronomy and multi-messenger astrophysics, using telescopes across the electromagnetic spectrum to probe extreme astrophysical transients, from gamma-ray bursts to tidal disruption events. She also searches for radio counterparts to gravitational wave signals from merging compact objects. Her innovative approach earned her a 2024 Sloan Research Fellowship, one of the most competitive awards available to early-career scientists.
Carl Fields
Fields leads the project "Chasing the First Explosions from BH* with LSST," collaborating with Dr. Wenbin Lu of UC Berkeley and Dr. Feige Wang of the University of Michigan. The team will combine cutting-edge simulations with early Rubin data to study the universe's first black holes and their explosive signatures.
"This is a unique and exciting opportunity that directly connects state-of-the-art simulations with early data products from Rubin," Fields said. "Groundbreaking collaborations between theory and observations will be a necessary and important part of describing the wide-ranging classes of transients Rubin will discover. It is an exciting time for multi-messenger astronomy!"
Fields is a computational astrophysicist who studies massive stars, their explosions, and the multi-messenger signals they produce. Before joining Steward Observatory in 2024, he served as a Feynman Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellow at Los Alamos National Laboratory, where he developed advanced simulations of stellar death and core-collapse supernovae.
The Rubin Observatory's LSST survey began in late 2025, with the first data preview expected in July 2026. The telescope will conduct a comprehensive survey of the southern sky, revolutionizing our understanding of transient astronomical phenomena through its unprecedented combination of depth, coverage, and repeat observations.
Read more about U of A’s involvement in mirror casting and sensor development for the LSST.
The awards hold special significance for Research Corporation for Science Advancement (RCSA), which provided early financial support to launch the planning and construction of what was then called the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope 25 years ago.
"There's no greater thrill for a foundation, especially a relatively small one like Research Corporation, to make a bet on something like the LSST and see it turn into a world-class scientific instrument like the Vera Rubin telescope," said Danny Gasch, RCSA's Vice President and CFO, at the 2025 Scialog conference in Tucson.
Each award provides $60,000 in direct costs to support collaborative, cross-disciplinary research that wouldn't typically receive funding through traditional channels. The Scialog initiative—short for "science + dialog"—brings together researchers across disciplines to accelerate breakthroughs and foster innovative collaborations.
The achievements of Alexander and Fields underscore Steward Observatory's position at the forefront of time-domain astronomy as the field enters what promises to be an unprecedented era of discovery with the Rubin Observatory.
The awards are funded by Research Corporation for Science Advancement, the Heising-Simons Foundation, the Leinweber Foundation, and independent philanthropist Kevin Wells.