Aomawa Shields is an astronomer, an astrobiologist, the Clare Boothe Luce Associate Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of California, Irvine, and a classically-trained actor. She was named a 2015 TED Fellow and is the recipient of the NSF CAREER Award and a NASA Habitable Worlds program grant, among others. She is the founder and director of Rising Stargirls, a program dedicated to encouraging girls of all colors and backgrounds to learn, explore, and discover the universe using theater, writing, and visual art. She lives with her husband and daughter in Southern California.
