51 Pegasi b Fellow Dr. Samantha Trumbo Identifies Internal Carbon Source on Europa September 22, 2023 Share Jupiter’s moon Europa has a subsurface ocean thought to contain twice the amount of water of Earth’s oceans. But scientists had not been able to confirm if the ocean contains biologically essential chemicals for life as we know it, particularly carbon, until now.
Looking to Clouds in the Search for Habitable Exoplanets September 8, 2023 Share What can clouds on distant planets tell us in our search for habitable planets elsewhere? How could the next generation of telescopes amplify our understanding of exoplanet atmospheres?
Multi-Donor Initiative to Award More than $500 Million to Revitalize Local News September 7, 2023 Share The Heising-Simons Foundation is joining a coalition of 21 other donors to create Press Forward, a new national grantmaking initiative with the goal to strengthen local news and information with a combined more than a half-billion dollars over the next five years.
Imagery that Moves Planets and People August 21, 2023 Share A glowing dot passes behind a blackened circle and reappears on the other side. Four luminous pin pricks orbit a dark central body. These moving images are not models. They are real exoplanets: directly observed, recorded, and time-lapsed, inviting people around the world to glimpse distant solar systems and their dynamics over more than a decade—in just seconds.
A Year After Inflation Reduction Act Passage, Race to Accelerate Clean Energy Is On August 17, 2023 Share There are reasons for both grave concern and optimism in our fight to avoid a climate catastrophe. While each day brings news of the rapidly worsening impacts of climate change, I have hope at the one-year anniversary of the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), the most consequential climate law in U.S. history.
The Carceral Carousel: Q&A with Grantees Immigrant Legal Resource Center and Detention Watch Network July 21, 2023 Share Over the past three decades, the federal immigration and criminal legal systems have become increasingly intertwined. Using the criminalization of Black and brown people as a tool, these two systems, working in tandem, have driven up rates of arrest, incarceration, and deportation, fueling the growth of the prison industry and leading to the separation of both citizen and noncitizen families.
Heising-Simons Foundation Funds Six Scientists Looking for Signatures of Life in the Universe July 14, 2023 Share The Heising-Simons Foundation’s Science program has made a suite of grants totaling $550,000 to support six exoplanet scientists working on projects that originated in a Scialog program entitled “Signatures of Life in the Universe,” convened by Research Corporation for Science Advancement.
Heising-Simons Foundation Joins Philanthropic Funders in Response to Supreme Court’s Decision on Affirmative Action June 30, 2023 Share The Heising-Simons Foundation signed the following statement by funders and philanthropic organizations in response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s rulings in Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina and Students for Fair Admissions v. President and Fellows of Harvard College.
Grantee Partner Publications, May – June 2023 June 30, 2023 Share The Heising-Simons Foundation is proud to highlight publications by grantee partners. We encourage you to look through their inspiring work. Email us at [email protected] if you would like us to share any publications. Community Schools Learning Exchange (co-author) Don’t leave students with disabilities out of California’s massive community schools investment Date of Publication: May 1, …