First cohort of Beus Prize Fellows brings fresh perspective, bold research ideas to ASU's School of Earth and Space Exploration

The first Beus Prize Fellows have been announced, and they are three exceptional early‑career scholars whose creativity, technical talent and scientific vision are already energizing the Beus Center for Cosmic Foundations. Each fellow brings a fresh perspective and bold research ideas that not only advance the center’s mission but also enrich the day‑to‑day experience of the students and researchers who collaborate with them.

The Beus Prize Fellowship program brings rising stars in astrophysics to ASU at a pivotal moment in their careers. Working closely with faculty and students, the fellows are driving forward cutting‑edge research — from uncovering how early stars and galaxies formed to developing new tools for spectroscopic analysis. Awarded annually to a researcher within four years of receiving their PhD, each fellowship provides three years of support for independent research. This year represents the first complete cohort since the center’s founding.

“The presence of the Beus Prize Fellows strengthens our research and gives our students invaluable opportunities to work directly with emerging leaders who are shaping the future of astrophysics,” said Judd Bowman, director of the Beus Center for Cosmic Foundations, Beus Chair of Cosmology and professor in the School of Earth and Space Exploration.

Established through a transformational 2022 endowment from Annette Beus and her late husband, Leo, the Beus Center for Cosmic Foundations supports a vibrant community of astrophysicists, instrument builders and educators dedicated to uncovering our cosmic origins. By attracting outstanding postdoctoral scholars from around the world, the fellowship expands ASU’s ability to push the boundaries of discovery using state‑of‑the‑art observatories on Earth and in space.

"We are grateful to the generosity of the Beus family for their support of astrophysics and cosmology in the School of Earth and Space Exploration," said Professor Ramon Arrowsmith, interim director of the school. "In particular, the early-career colleagues joining us will enrich and transform fundamental research and sharing of that knowledge broadly."

Haley Williams received her PhD in astrophysics from the University of Minnesota in June 2025. Her graduate work with Professor Patrick Kelly focused on high-redshift sources magnified by galaxy-cluster-scale gravitational lensing. As a Beus Prize Fellow, Williams uses data from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope to research individual massive stars at cosmological distances that are temporarily highly magnified during caustic-crossing transient events. These rare stars — detectable only with the tremendous boost provided by gravitational lensing — offer powerful probes of distant stellar populations, the high‑redshift initial mass function and the distribution of dark matter within galaxy clusters. She is also interested in extremely high-redshift galaxies, active galactic nuclei and how galaxies evolve over cosmic time. In her free time, Williams enjoys baking bread and pastries, playing bar trivia and alpine skiing.

Vicente Estrada‑Carpenter is an observational astronomer who studies star‑forming regions to understand how gas accretion, star formation, metallicity and dust interact during “cosmic noon,” the universe’s peak era of star formation. He earned his undergraduate degree from Southwestern University, his PhD from Texas A&M University and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Estrada‑Carpenter’s research uses slitless spectroscopy from JWST/NIRISS to produce high‑fidelity emission‑line maps that reveal the spatially resolved properties of distant galaxies. He is also the lead developer of Sleuth, an analysis framework that extracts these maps from large slitless datasets, enabling transformative JWST science and laying the groundwork for the upcoming Roman Space Telescope era. Outside of research, he enjoys spending time with family, cooking and playing guitar.

Chris Cain is an astrophysicist who studies the early universe, earning his PhD in physics from the University of California, Riverside in 2023. Cain’s doctoral research, “Modeling Reionization from Small to Large Scales,” developed radiative transfer simulations and efficient theoretical tools to interpret observations of the high-redshift universe. His research focuses on the small-scale structure and dynamics of the intergalactic medium, the formation and evolution of the first galaxies, stars, and black holes within the first billion years, and the connections between high-redshift astrophysics and precision cosmology. Through computational and theoretical approaches, he aims to bridge the gap between detailed physical modeling and large-scale cosmological observations. Outside of research, he enjoys hiking, fishing and playing Dungeons & Dragons.