Scott Gaudi, astronomy; and Christopher Hirata, astronomy and physics, are two of 96 researchers President Obama named this week as recipients of the Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers--the highest honor given by the U. S. Government to science and engineering professionals in the early stages of their research careers.

This is the third year in a row arts and sciences researchers have been selected for this award.

Gaudi and Hirata are the only two astronomers named this year. They join a select group of the nation's most promising young researchers that includes two previous winners from Ohio State—Ian Howat, School of Earth Sciences, in 2011; and Steven Lower, School of Earth Sciences, in 2010.

Recipients are funded by federal departments and agencies, which annually nominate scientists and engineers whose early accomplishments show the greatest promise for assuring America’s preeminence in science and engineering and contributing to the awarding agencies' missions.

Gaudi was nominated by the National Science Foundation. Hirata, who has accepted a position at Ohio State in the departments of physics (75%) and astronomy (25%), was nominated by the Department of Energy.

Hirata, currently at the California Institute of Technology, will have a no-salary appointment as visiting professor at Ohio State, effective September 1, 2012. He  assumes his salaried position at Ohio State autumn 2013.

In 2011, Gaudi received the NSF CAREER award, which recognizes and supports the county’s most promising young scientists. The five-year, $774,527 award funds his project, The Demographics of Exoplanets, an effort to create a new stellar map for exoplanets—those planets that lay beyond our solar system. Gaudi’s goal is to compare various methods on a rigorous statistical basis, then stitch them together like a patchwork quilt to get a better global sense of the actual demographics of exoplanets.

Well-known as an extraordinarily successful planet-hunter, Gaudi has been directly involved in worldwide collaborations that have found five of the eight planets discovered using gravitational lensing. Also, he led a group that made the first-ever discovery of two planets at once using this method.

Recently, Gaudi and astronomy PhD candidate Thomas Beatty, with colleagues at the Vanderbilt Initiative in Data-Intensive Astrophysics, discovered two additional and distinctly odd extrasolar planets.

Hirata describes his research as theoretical and observational cosmology, focusing on cosmology, the study of the structure, composition, and evolution of the Universe. Specifically, he is interested in: dark energy and the accelerating Universe; gravitational lensing, the cosmic microwave background, galaxy clustering and the large scale structure of the Universe, the reionization epoch, and general relativity.

The PECASE awards, established by President Clinton in 1996, are coordinated by the Office of Science and Technology Policy within the Executive Office of the President. Awardees are selected for their pursuit of innovative research at the frontiers of science and technology and their commitment to community service as demonstrated through scientific leadership, public education, or community outreach.