Dr. McQuinn is a previous member of the Roman Space Telescope Advisory Committee, which advises the institute’s director about strategies and priorities for Roman’s science program and operations to maximize the observatory’s scientific productivity. In 2023, she served on the Hubble Space Telescope’s proposal review executive committee and sat on the panel for the National Science Foundation’s proposal review. In 2021, she sat on the James Webb Space Telescope and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) Observatory’s proposal committees.
She has been regularly awarded time to observe with Hubble since 2007, and has also been granted time to observe with Webb and the Chandra X-ray Observatory, among others. Dr. McQuinn is an active researcher who has focused her studies on the formation and evolution of low-mass galaxies, near-field cosmology illuminated by the faint-end of the galaxy luminosity function, the baryon cycle in galaxies, resolved stellar populations and galaxy archeology, star formation and chemical enrichment histories, and the extragalactic distance scale. In addition to regularly publishing her findings, she also has also given scientific talks at many international conferences and workshops. Throughout her career, Dr. McQuinn has also served as an active mentor to post-doctoral researchers, and graduate and undergraduate students.