Olenka Hubickyj

Lecturer, Physics and Astronomy

“To help students find their power, you must respect them.”

Recipient of the university’s Outstanding Lecturer Award, Hubickyj arrived in New York, the child of Ukrainian immigrants, via a refugee camp in post-war Germany. She knows intimately what it means to straddle cultures. “I understand what it’s like for kids who have family, cultural and academic obligations,” she says. A researcher at NASA for more than 30 years, Hubickyj realized she wanted to be an astronomer at age nine. In 2008, she decided she wanted to become a teacher, too. Although students sometimes tell her to “tone down the geek,” her enthusiasm sparks their own. If she had her way? She’d call her science course “All Things Fantastic.”

Department: Physics and Astronomy
College: College of Science

Photo: Thomas Sanders, ’15 MFA Photography


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