Jennifer (Fox) Connelly

Fox Connelly is an astrophysicist and science educator who serves as Associate Director of the Whitworth Ferguson Planetarium at Buffalo State University, where she co-directs operations, programming, and finances and teaches and develops curriculum for the university's astronomy courses.

Fox studied physics and political science as an undergraduate, and she began her observational astronomy work in college, operating telescopes and studying star clusters at Kitt Peak National Observatory. She held a paid internship with the National Academies' Space Studies Board, supporting its advisory committees in work that drew on both of her fields and established an early priority of connecting research science with the public and with policy. She went on to earn a master's degree in astronomy at Wesleyan University, studying active galactic nuclei, and a doctorate at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Munich, Germany. Her Ph.D. and postdoctoral research there focused on galaxy groups, using X-ray and optical observations to study how galaxies evolve in different environments.

At the Rochester Institute of Technology, Fox taught and mentored undergraduate and graduate researchers for eight years and advised RIT Space Exploration. Making science more inclusive was central to her work there, including her role as co-principal investigator on a $1 million, five-year HHMI Inclusive Excellence grant.

She has carried that commitment to Buffalo State, where she has worked since 2021 to expand access to science through programs designed for audiences with diverse needs, the planetarium's first youth science camps, culturally immersive community events, and guidance for under-resourced groups seeking funding. She co-chaired Buffalo State's 2024 Eclipse Task Force and co-hosted the 2022 Great Lakes Planetarium Association annual meeting. Fox holds a Ph.D. in Astronomy from Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, an M.A. in Astronomy from Wesleyan University, and a B.S. in Political Science and Physics from Dickinson College.