Rachel Morgan

Dr. Rachel Morgan is an Optical Scientist at NASA Ames Research Center studying the application of programmable integrated photonics technology to coronographic instruments for the characterization of exo-Earths with the Habitable Worlds Observatory. The goal of this research is to use a reconfigurable integrated photonic instrument to achieve a high contrast coronagraph for small inner working angles with a small form factor device in order to increase the exo-Earth science yield of the Habitable Worlds Observatory. 

Dr. Morgan completed her undergraduate degree in Aerospace Engineering and Physics at MIT in 2018. She then continued at MIT for graduate school as a NASA Space Technology and Research Fellow and Amelia Earhart Fellow. She served as the optical payload engineer for the Deformable Mirror Demonstration Mission (DeMi) CubeSat Mission that successfully demonstrated a Microelectromechancial Systems deformable mirror in space for the first time with a mini-space telescope payload integrated on a CubeSat mission that completed over 1,000 communications passes over ~2 years of in-space operations. After this mission experience, she decided she wanted to develop more optical technologies for space missions and pursued a PhD thesis in collaboration with MIT Lincoln Laboratory in the field of integrated photonics. During her PhD thesis she developed a Germanium-on-Silicon integrated photonics platform for the mid-wave infrared wavelength range and studied its application to a miniaturized gas-sensing lidar transmitter payload. After completing her PhD in 2023, she worked in the Photonics Devices Group at the Politecnico di Milano working on silicon photonics design for a lidar application. She is passionate about applying integrated photonics technology to miniaturize and improve the performance of optical systems for space applications. Outside of research, she enjoys cooking and playing the saxophone. 

Research Interests:
Integrated photonics, exoplanet direct imaging technology, space telescope systems

• Carl E. Nielsen, Jr. Award for Excellence in Graduate Student Research at MIT Lincoln Laboratory, 2021.
• 1st Place in the Frank J Redd Student Paper Competition at the AIAA/USU 2020 Conference on Small Satellites for paper and oral presentation "Optical Modeling, Alignment, and Testing for the Deformable Mirror Demonstration Mission (DeMi) CubeSat Payload."
• MIT AeroAstro Apollo Award for leadership and excellent contributions to the DeMi space mission, spring 2020
• MIT AeroAstro James Means Award for Excellence in Space Systems Engineering for work in senior capstone engineering project, 2018.

Website: https://sites.google.com/view/rachelmorgan/home

Selected:

Morgan R., Heidelberger C.,  Kharas D., et al. "Low-loss Germanium-on-Silicon Waveguides and Ring Resonators for the Mid-Wave Infrared." Conference on Lasers and Electro Optics SW5O.1 2022. 

Morgan R., Douglas E., Allan G., et al., “Optical calibration and first light for the deformable mirror demonstration mission CubeSat (DeMi).” Journal of Astronomical Telescopes and Instrument Systems 7 (2) 2021. doi: 10.1117/1.JATIS.7.2.024002.

Morgan R., Douglas E., Allan G., et al., “MEMS Deformable Mirrors for Space-Based High Contrast Imaging.” Micromachines 10 (6), 366, 2019. doi: 10.3390/mi10060366.