Office Artifacts: Marc Kornbleuth

Star Wars toys, astronaut history, and BU memorabilia are all on display in the CAS postdoc researcher’s office

Click on the icons above to see more of what Marc Kornbleuth displays in his College of Arts & Sciences office.

Millennial Marc Kornbleuth remembers having a career crisis in the eighth grade when he realized he would never become a professional baseball player. Thinking about his options and how he loved to scroll through AOL (throwback time) to see slideshows of galaxies and stars, and already a big fan of Star Wars and Star Trek, he decided to learn more about astronomy.

Now a College of Arts & Sciences postdoc researcher, Kornbleuth (CAS’13, GRS’20,’20) earned three degrees from BU in the realm of astronomy (“I’ve basically been here forever,” he says. “I don’t know if you can get rid of me”). He studied astronomy and physics as an undergrad, focusing on the heating and acceleration of solar winds with Merav Opher, a CAS professor of astronomy, and earned a joint master’s and PhD in astrophysics in 2020. He currently works on the SHIELD (Solar wind with Hydrogen Ion Exchange and Large-scale Dynamics) DRIVE Science Center with Opher, the center’s principal investigator.

Outside of his research, Kornbleuth mentors four graduate students, work that he loves and that challenges him. “I like seeing them evolve,” he says. “I remember when I was a grad student, and you didn’t want to ask your advisor every single question. It’s nice to have that person to look up to.”

His CAS office is decorated with lots of BU and outer space memorabilia: an old campus map, a signed Leonard Nimoy (Hon.’12) T-shirt, a July 24, 1969, newspaper front page announcing the news that humans had landed on the moon. Asked if he’s ever considered becoming an astronaut, Kornbleuth—a new dad—says yes, as he’s pretty sure that having a doctorate in astronomy qualifies him for the job.

“But whether my wife would let me go if I was accepted is the question,” he says with a smile.

In our Office Artifacts series, BU Today highlights interesting artifacts professors and staff display in their offices. Have a suggestion about someone we should profile? Email amlaskow@bu.edu.

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