Short biography
Dr. Danielle Gurgew is an experimental astrophysicist at USRA STI working with the X-
ray Astronomy Group at Marshall Space Flight Center. Her research focuses on X-ray
optics instrumentation with a specialty in reflective thin film coatings. Dr. Gurgew is the
PI of the X-ray Astronomy task at USRA and leads the thin film coating laboratory in the
MSFC X-ray Group. She was coating lead of the Marshall optics on the FOXSI 4
sounding rocket mission and is currently Co-I on several NASA APRA programs for the
development of X-ray optic technology. Her scientific interests include hard X-ray mirror
development for high-resolution imaging as well as X-ray mission development from
suborbital to Explorer class missions.