Recently, NASA astrophysicist Chryssa Kouveliotou became one of the "most connected" people on the planet. In a study done on people most "linked" to each other via research papers, the Marshall Space Flight Center scientist was amongst the top five. It's the result of comparing notes with other people around the world who, like her, have their eyes on the stars.

In late 2002, Kouveliotou and a team of 15 other astrophysicists were rewarded for this ability to collaborate across borders. They were given the Descartes Prize, also known as the European Science Award, for European collaborative research in any field. The US was an associate member of a team including six EU countries that has made major strides in studying gamma ray bursts. Gamma ray bursts are huge explosions in the sky that produce gamma rays (frequencies not visible to the naked eye, captured by satellites).

First, in 1997, the team proved that gamma ray burst sources are located in distant galaxies, as opposed to nearby ones. Since then, the international group has been collecting scores of gamma ray burst locations. Instrumental in this effort was the combination of NASA's Compton Gamma Ray Observatory satellite and the Dutch-Italian satellite Beppo-SAX .

This work has brought a lot of attention to the field. Now, remarks Kouveliotou, "everybody is in on the game." The study of the massive, distant energy explosions or "death knolls" have proven useful to astrophysicists of all specialities.

Based in Huntsville, Alabama for the past thirteen years, Kouveliotou collects data from satellites around the world. Her work requires a constant cross-referencing of global data. "It was a dream come true for me," says Kouveliotou, of the resources available to her at the Marshall's National Space and Technology Center. She adds: "It's very, very nice to work in the up-to-date and breakthrough science and make several discoveries using all these satellites and ground-based observatories, working with international teams."

Star-gazing, hard work
Kouveliotou says she got started in the same way everybody does. "I like looking at the stars at night." She adds, "In countries like Greece, where you spend lots of summers at the beach and you just spend nights looking at the stars, you start wondering. This really gives you a push to start thinking about what's up there."

The astrophysicist first studied physics in Greece, then astrophysics in the UK and Germany. After teaching for 12 years at the University of Athens, while constantly going abroad to be up-to-date, she decided the US was where she had to be. Greece may have excellent theoretical astrophysicists, notes Kouveliotou, but it doesn't have the infrastructure for observational high-energy astrophysics work, lacking membership in the European Southern Observatory (ESO) or the European Space Agency (ESA).

Kouveliotou did two NASA sabbaticals, at the Goddard Space Flight Centre between 1985 and 1987 and the Marshall Space Flight Centre in 1991. Since 1995 she's been deputy director of the Institute for Space Physics, Astronomy and Education, a collaboration between NASA and Alabama University. She's worked with the Marshall's Burst and Transient Source Experiment (BATSE) team since 1991.

A conductor of science
Committee work, overseeing research projects and grant applications leave less time for working with data than Kouveliotou would like. However, she's accepted the more senior role with a sense of duty: "Now I'm more like a conductor, finding good people to work with, a good team of post-docs and graduate students. They do most of the data analysis." Kouveliotou has twelve hour-plus working days and an open-door policy.

Her research goes beyond gamma ray bursts. Last year Kouveliotou was one of three people who received the American Astronomical Society's Rossi Prize for her observational discovery of magnetars. Magnetars are neutron stars with very powerful magnetic fields.

Meanwhile, Kouveliotou and her gamma ray bursts team continue to examine data from "the Hubble and every satellite more or less", such as the Chandra X-ray Observatory . She's also working with a group creating ground instruments designed to observe the phenomenon.

The next Holy Grail
Kouveliotou continues to pursue the timeliest of issues. She thinks the next "Holy Grail" of the gamma ray burst field's is capturing short bursts (Kouveliotou is the one who discovered that there are short and long gamma ray bursts). The astrophysicist also remains interested in the biggest gamma-ray burst mystery of all: what engine fuels these incredibly massive bursts? And when NASA sends up its new Swift satellite in September, which is dedicated to gamma ray bursts, Kouveliotou will be one of many scientists watching closely.