Christina Hedges
NASA Pandora Smallsat Data Processing Lead
Washington DC-Baltimore Area United States
Summary
👤
Senior🎓
Top SchoolChristina Hedges is a research scientist and software leader with nine years of experience building mission-critical data systems for NASA missions including Kepler/K2, TESS, and currently Pandora, where she leads end-to-end smallsat data processing. She blends a Cambridge PhD in Astronomy with deep practical expertise in Python, machine learning, and scalable pipeline design to turn raw telemetry into reproducible, science-ready products used by the exoplanet community. Christina has a strong track record in grant-winning independent research, program leadership (ADAP, PDART), and sustaining community-facing tools like the widely used Lightkurve package. Known for mentoring multidisciplinary teams and codifying archival standards and ICDs, she focuses on making high-precision astrophysical measurements accessible and reusable. An uncommon strength: she consistently couples advanced linear-algebra and time-series ML methods with software best practices to extract extremely small signals from vast datasets.
9 years of coding experience
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Astronomy, Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Astronomy at University of CambridgeMaster of Science (MSc), Physics with Astronomy, First Class Hons, Master of Science (MSc), Physics with Astronomy, First Class Hons at University of Birmingham
Github Skills (7)
fits10
python10
data-analysis9
unit-testing9
time-series8
astrophysics8
astronomy7
Programming languages (8)
Github contributions (5)
lightkurve/lightkurve
Jan 2018 - Jan 2023
A friendly package for Kepler & TESS time series analysis in Python.
Role in this project:
Back-end Developer
Back-end DeveloperContributions:2 releases, 39 reviews, 161 commits in 5 years
Contributions summary:Christina primarily focused on implementing and improving the functionality of the lightkurve package. They added tutorial structures, incorporated error handling for file type validation, and implemented getter and setter methods for accessing data. Significant efforts were also invested in adding unit tests, refactoring code, and fixing bugs, while also beautifying existing code. The user's contributions are focused on creating code that provides users with easier access and use of their project.
tesskeplerpythontime-series-analysisastrophysics
tessgi/tessproposaltool
Apr 2024 - Apr 2025
Command line and Python tools for creating proposals
Contributions:1 release, 1 review, 1 PR in 11 months
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