From late 2019 to 2022, Dr. Postman sought ways to maintain the scientific environment during the challenges posed by the pandemic, helped establish new initiatives to support researchers, implemented policies to ensure diversity and inclusion on key institute science committees, expanded access to science staff meetings, and consulted with the research staff to involve the institute in a number of exciting research initiatives. From 2005 to 2019, he led the community missions office, where he guided the institute’s role in providing science operations support for a number of ground- and space-based observatories that are led by independent astronomical groups in partnership with STScI. During that period, he and his staff helped STScI acquire key roles in supporting NASA’s Kepler space telescope, Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope and Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) missions, and broadened the range of new initiatives that STScI pursues.
Dr. Postman’s primary research interest has been the formation and evolution of structure in the universe, from galaxies to the largest superclusters. He was a member of the science investigation team for the Advanced Camera for Surveys instrument that was deployed on the Hubble Space Telescope in 2002. From 2010 to 2017, Dr. Postman lead an international team of researchers to conduct a 525-orbit survey with the Hubble telescope to study dark matter in galaxy clusters and to detect some of the most distant galaxies in the universe. He is an observational astronomer and has used a wide range of telescopes on the ground and in space, covering the electromagnetic spectrum from radio and infrared to ultraviolet and X-rays.