Karin Öberg

Karin Ingegerd Öberg (born August 27, 1982) is a Swedish astrochemist. She is a Professor of Astronomy at Harvard University and leader of the Öberg Astrochemistry Group at the Center for Astrophysics Harvard & Smithsonian. Her research concerns star formation, planet formation, and stellar evolution in relation to organic molecules, which are necessary to determine the origins of life on Earth and elsewhere. In April 2015, her group discovered the first complex organic molecule in a protoplanetary disk.

Early life Karin Öberg was born in Nyköping, Sweden. Also during her senior year at the Chapmanskolan gymnasium, she conducted a project under the supervision of her father, which resulted in her first publication. She has said that "Caltech was a birth through fire experience into science, which taught [her] to think, to ask questions, and to solve problems as [she] scarcely had thought [her] mind capable of." She used this funding to research at the Center for Astrophysics Harvard & Smithsonian until August 2012. and is an advisor of the Purposeful Universe Project.

Research As of 2021, Öberg has published over 130 refereed articles, at least 36 of those as the first author, and has been cited over 11,000 times. Her main domain of work currently pertains to astrochemistry and its effect on planet formation. The Öberg Astrochemistry Group, her current research group, states that their main research addresses the following:

The group's research is composed of laboratory ice simulations and radio and infrared observations of astronomical behaviors and information. Up until this discovery, it was unclear if these molecules could exist in abundance in young disks because of their turbulent and chaotic nature. This discovery is significant because it shows that the backbone of life, complex carbon bonds, are not exclusive to the Solar System.

Personal life

As a child, Öberg was confirmed in the Church of Sweden, but soon after became agnostic. Her later conversion to Catholicism was partly inspired by G. K. Chesterton's Orthodoxy,

Selected publications

Awards and honors 2001- Swedish representative in the International Chemistry Olympiad