Marcel Agüeros is an associate professor of astronomy at Columbia University. A native New Yorker and a Columbia College alumnus, Marcel received his Ph.D. from the University of Washington in 2006, returned to
Columbia as a National Science Foundation Astronomy & Astrophysics Post-doctoral Fellow that year, and joined the faculty in 2010. Marcel is an observational astrophysicist who uses new approaches to address classic questions in stellar evolution. He is the author of more than 70 peer-reviewed publications and has received more than $4 million in grants for his work. He is also committed to increasing the numbers of women and underrepresented minorities in the sciences. In 2016, Marcel received the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers from President Obama for "his groundbreaking research in stellar astrophysics, and for his restless desire to ensure that minority students in sciences become tomorrow's leaders."