Instructor
Anna Frebel - Headshot

Anna Frebel

Professor of Physics, Division Head for Astrophysics, MIT School of Science

Lead Instructor

Roadmapping Success for Women Leaders

Prof. Frebel is an observational astronomer and astrophysicist. She received her PhD from the Australian National University in 2007 and did postdoctoral work as a WJ McDonald Fellow in Austin, TX (2006-2008) and as Clay Fellow at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian (CfA), in Cambridge, MA (2009-2012).

Prof. Frebel has received numerous honors and awards for her research into the oldest stars in the universe, including the 2010 Annie Jump Cannon Award (American Astronomical Society), a 2013 CAREER Award from the National Science Foundation, and in 2016 she was named one of ScienceNews Magazine's “Ten Scientists to Watch”. She joined the faculty of the MIT Physics Department in 2012, and was tenured in 2018. She currently serves as the Head of the Astrophysics Division, and is a Fellow of the American Physical Society. 

Prof. Frebel has authored more than 180 papers in various refereed journals, including Nature and Science. She also enjoys communicating science to the public through her public lectures, magazine articles, and interviews as well as her popular science book “Searching for the Oldest Stars: Ancient Relics from the Early Universe” (Princeton University Press). 

In 2020, she co-founded the award-winning MIT graduate and postdoc program “LEAPS–Leadership and Professional Strategies and Skills”, and she is an instructor with MIT Professional Education on leadership courses tailored for women. In 2023, she journeyed to Antarctica as a member of the global leadership initiative for women with a STEMM background Homeward Bound to immersively train in strategic planning and collaborative leadership. 

  • Prof. Frebel's research interests broadly cover observational stellar astrophysics and the formation of the Milky Way galaxy.
  • Prof. Frebel is best known for her discoveries and spectroscopic analyses of the oldest 13 billion year old stars in the Milky Way and its small satellite galaxies.
  • In 2005, Frebel discovered the star HE 1327-2326, which remains one of the chemically most primitive stars known, stemming from a time very shortly after the Big Bang.

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