Yolanda Gómez
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Yolanda Gómez Castellanos (1962–2012) was a Mexican astronomer who studied interstellar clouds including planetary nebulae and compact H II regions.[1][2] She became known for the discovery of water vapor through emissions from astrophysical masers associated with OH/IR stars and planetary nebulae,[1][2] evidence for the extremely recent formation of the associated nebula.[3]
Gómez was born in Mexico City,[4][5] in 1962.[5][6] She studied physics at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), earning a bachelor's degree in 1985 and completing her doctorate in 1990.[4]
After postdoctoral research at the Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, she became a researcher at UNAM in 1993, first in the Institute of Astronomy and after 2001 as a founding member of the Center for Radio Astronomy and Astrophysics of the Morelia campus of UNAM.[2][5]