List of Famous Astrophysicists
- Carl Sagan was a renowned American astronomer, astrophysicist, and author, born on November 9, 1934, in Brooklyn, New York. His profound curiosity about the cosmos was evident from his early years, which led him to study physics and astronomy. He earned his bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of Chicago and subsequently obtained his Ph.D. in Astronomy and Astrophysics in 1960. Sagan held academic positions at prestigious institutions such as Harvard University and Cornell University, where he imparted his knowledge to eager minds. Sagan's contributions to the field of space science were nothing short of monumental. He played a pivotal role in NASA's Mariner, Viking, Voyager, and Galileo expeditions to other planets. Notably, he helped select the Mars landing sites for the Viking probes and was instrumental in the creation of the gold-anodized plaques and golden records carried by the Pioneer 10, Pioneer 11, and Voyager spacecraft. These records contained sounds and images selected to portray the diversity of life on Earth and were intended for any extraterrestrial life that might find them. Apart from his scientific endeavors, Sagan was an eloquent communicator of science, making complex concepts accessible to the general public. His landmark television series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage aired in 1980, captivating millions with its exploration of the universe's mysteries. He also penned many books, including the critically acclaimed Pale Blue Dot and Contact, the latter of which was adapted into a successful film. Sagan passed away on December 20, 1996, but his legacy continues to inspire curiosity and wonder about the cosmos.
- A deeply intelligent man with an extremely personable, mediagenic style, Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson became equal parts astrophysicist and media celebrity. He was born in 1958 to mother Sunchita Marie Feliciano (a gerontologist) and father Cyril deGrasse Tyson, a sociologist and human resource commissioner for New York City mayor John Lindsay who also served as the first Director of Harlem Youth Opportunities Unlimited. Tyson was a product of the public school system, through to his graduation from the Bronx High School of Science. Following this, he then earned his BA in Physics from Harvard and a PhD in Astrophysics from Columbia (this despite lobbying from none other than Carl Sagan, who attempted in vain to lure Tyson To Cornell). Tyson has written for dozens of publications and authored nearly a dozen books. However, even though his professional achievements are large -- including those related to star formations, exploding stars, dwarf galaxies and the structure of the Milky Way -- he became perhaps best known for being the man held most responsible for the stripping of Pluto of its former planetary status. It was reclassified as a "dwarf planet," a move which, according to Tyson himself, prompted hate mail from several young people who had come to identify with it. His exposure during this time led to an ever-burgeoning media career, with Tyson becoming the go-to astrophysicist for several channels and programs. Beginning in the fall of 2006, he appeared for five seasons as on-camera host and off-camera executive producer for NOVA ScienceNOW (PBS 2006-2011), and also became a familiar talking head on news and comedy programs that wanted to discuss scientific topics. In 2009, Tyson began a run as host of StarTalk, a show (later a podcast) combining celebrity guests, standup comedians (and the doctor) engaging in information yet playful science banter. Tyson was named one of the "100 most influential persons in the world" by TIME in 2007 and "Sexiest Astrophysicist Alive" by People in 2000. He received NASA's Distinguished Public Service Medal in 2011, the organization's the highest award possible for a non-governmental employee.
- Stephen Hawking was a world-renowned physicist and cosmologist known for his ground-breaking work in theoretical physics. Born on January 8, 1942, in Oxford, England, he displayed a keen interest in science from a young age. Despite being diagnosed with a rare early-onset slow-progressing form of motor neurone disease that gradually paralyzed him over the decades, Hawking pursued his education at both Oxford and Cambridge, earning distinctions in Natural Science and a Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, specializing in general relativity and cosmology. Hawking's contributions to the field of theoretical physics are countless. His work on singularity theorems in the framework of general relativity and the theoretical prediction that black holes emit radiation, often called Hawking radiation, catapulted him to global recognition. He also collaborated with Roger Penrose on gravitational singularity theorems, providing a set of conditions under which a singularity would occur in nature. He further developed a mathematical proof for black holes, and his research on quantum mechanics and thermal properties of light in the early 1970s led to his discovery that black holes could theoretically leak energy and particles into space, and eventually explode‚ an astonishing revelation in the field of astrophysics. Beyond the sphere of academia, Stephen Hawking became a household name through his best-selling books, most notably A Brief History of Time which sold over 25 million copies worldwide. Despite the progressive nature of his disease which resulted in his reliance on a speech-generating device for communication, Hawking continued to lecture, write, and inspire millions around the world until his death on March 14, 2018. In life and after, Hawking remains an indomitable figure in the realm of science, a testament to the resilience of the human spirit, and an embodiment of the quest for knowledge.
- Kip Stephen Thorne (born June 1, 1940) is an American theoretical physicist and Nobel laureate, known for his contributions in gravitational physics and astrophysics. A longtime friend and colleague of Stephen Hawking and Carl Sagan, he was the Feynman Professor of Theoretical Physics at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) until 2009 and is one of the world's leading experts on the astrophysical implications of Einstein's general theory of relativity. He continues to do scientific research and scientific consulting, most notably for the Christopher Nolan film Interstellar.In 2017, Thorne was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics along with Rainer Weiss and Barry C. Barish "for decisive contributions to the LIGO detector and the observation of gravitational waves".
- Frank Donald Drake (born May 28, 1930) is an American astronomer and astrophysicist. He is involved in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, including the founding of SETI, mounting the first observational attempts at detecting extraterrestrial communications in 1960 in Project Ozma, developing the Drake equation, and as the creator of the Arecibo Message, a digital encoding of an astronomical and biological description of the Earth and its lifeforms for transmission into the cosmos.
- Freeman John Dyson (born 15 December 1923) is an American theoretical physicist and mathematician known for his work in quantum electrodynamics, solid-state physics, astronomy and nuclear engineering. He is professor emeritus in the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, a Visitor of Ralston College and a member of the Board of Sponsors of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.Dyson originated several concepts that bear his name, such as Dyson's transform, a fundamental technique in additive number theory, which he developed as part of his proof of Mann's theorem; the Dyson tree, a hypothetical genetically-engineered plant capable of growing in a comet; the Dyson series, a perturbative series where each term is represented by Feynman diagrams; the Dyson sphere, a thought experiment that attempts to explain how a space-faring civilization would meet its energy requirements with a hypothetical megastructure that completely encompasses a star and captures a large percentage of its power output; and Dyson's eternal intelligence, a means by which an immortal society of intelligent beings in an open universe could escape the prospect of the heat death of the universe by extending subjective time to infinity while expending only a finite amount of energy. Dyson believes global warming is caused by increased carbon dioxide through burning fossil fuels, but is skeptical about the simulation models used to predict climate change, arguing that political efforts to reduce causes of climate change distract from other global problems that should take priority.
- Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar ; 19 October 1910 – 21 August 1995) was an Indian American astrophysicist who spent his professional life in the United States. He was awarded the 1983 Nobel Prize for Physics with William A. Fowler for "...theoretical studies of the physical processes of importance to the structure and evolution of the stars". His mathematical treatment of stellar evolution yielded many of the current theoretical models of the later evolutionary stages of massive stars and black holes. The Chandrasekhar limit is named after him. Chandrasekhar worked on a wide variety of physical problems in his lifetime, contributing to the contemporary understanding of stellar structure, white dwarfs, stellar dynamics, stochastic process, radiative transfer, the quantum theory of the hydrogen anion, hydrodynamic and hydromagnetic stability, turbulence, equilibrium and the stability of ellipsoidal figures of equilibrium, general relativity, mathematical theory of black holes and theory of colliding gravitational waves. At the University of Cambridge, he developed a theoretical model explaining the structure of white dwarf stars that took into account the relativistic variation of mass with the velocities of electrons that comprise their degenerate matter. He showed that the mass of a white dwarf could not exceed 1.44 times that of the Sun – the Chandrasekhar limit. Chandrasekhar revised the models of stellar dynamics first outlined by Jan Oort and others by considering the effects of fluctuating gravitational fields within the Milky Way on stars rotating about the galactic centre. His solution to this complex dynamical problem involved a set of twenty partial differential equations, describing a new quantity he termed 'dynamical friction', which has the dual effects of decelerating the star and helping to stabilize clusters of stars. Chandrasekhar extended this analysis to the interstellar medium, showing that clouds of galactic gas and dust are distributed very unevenly. Chandrasekhar studied at Presidency College, Madras (now Chennai) and the University of Cambridge. A long-time professor at the University of Chicago, he did some of his studies at the Yerkes Observatory, and served as editor of The Astrophysical Journal from 1952 to 1971. He was on the faculty at Chicago from 1937 until his death in 1995 at the age of 84, and was the Morton D. Hull Distinguished Service Professor of Theoretical Astrophysics.
- Brian May, best known as the lead guitarist of the legendary rock band Queen, is a distinguished musician, songwriter, and astrophysicist. Born on July 19, 1947, in Hampton, England, May's passion for music began at an early age. He built his first guitar, famously known as the Red Special, with his father at just 16 years old. This homemade instrument would later become iconic, producing the distinctive sound that millions of Queen fans worldwide have come to love. May's musical journey took a significant turn when he co-founded Queen in 1970 with vocalist Freddie Mercury and drummer Roger Taylor. The band went on to achieve global success, with May contributing as both a guitarist and a prolific songwriter. His composition of timeless hits such as "We Will Rock You" and "The Show Must Go On" are iconic in the landscape of rock music. Beyond his music career, May's intellectual curiosity led him to delve into the world of astrophysics, earning a Ph.D. from Imperial College London in 2007. Despite his stellar achievements in music and science, May remains humble and dedicated to humanitarian causes. He is a devoted animal rights activist, co-founding the Save Me Trust in 2010 to advocate against fox hunting and badger culling in the UK. May's varied personality - a rockstar, scientist, and activist - makes him a unique figure in the entertainment industry. His exceptional contributions to music, coupled with his intellectual pursuits and philanthropy, continue to inspire many around the globe.
- Colin Michael Foale (born 6 January 1957) is a British-American astrophysicist and former NASA astronaut. He is a veteran of six space missions, and is the only NASA astronaut to have flown extended missions aboard both Mir and the International Space Station. He was the first Briton to perform a space walk, and until 17 April 2008, he held the record for most time spent in space by a US citizen: 374 days, 11 hours, 19 minutes. He still holds the cumulative-time-in-space record for a UK citizen.
- Dirk Dries David Damiaan, Viscount Frimout (born 21 March 1941 in Poperinge, Belgium) is an astrophysicist for the European Space Agency. He flew aboard NASA Space Shuttle mission STS-45 as a payload specialist, making him the first Belgian in space.
- Glen David Brin (born October 6, 1950) is an American scientist and author of science fiction. He has received the Hugo, Locus, Campbell and Nebula Awards. His novel The Postman was adapted as a feature film and starred Kevin Costner in 1997. Brin's nonfiction book The Transparent Society won the Freedom of Speech Award of the American Library Association and the McGannon Communication Award.
- Cecilia Helena Payne-Gaposchkin (née Payne; (1900-05-10)May 10, 1900 – (1979-12-07)December 7, 1979) was a British-born American astronomer and astrophysicist who proposed in her 1925 doctoral thesis that stars were composed primarily of hydrogen and helium. Her groundbreaking conclusion was initially rejected because it contradicted the scientific wisdom of the time, which held that there were no significant elemental differences between the Sun and Earth. Independent observations eventually proved she was correct.
- John-David Francis Bartoe (born November 17, 1944 in Abington, Pennsylvania) is an American astrophysicist. He is the Research Manager for the International Space Station (ISS) at NASA's Johnson Space Center. He provides oversight for the Program Manager concerning the research capability, research hardware, and research plans of the ISS. As a civilian employee of the US Navy, he flew aboard Space Shuttle mission STS-51-F as a Payload Specialist.
- Annie Jump Cannon (; December 11, 1863 – April 13, 1941) was an American astronomer whose cataloging work was instrumental in the development of contemporary stellar classification. With Edward C. Pickering, she is credited with the creation of the Harvard Classification Scheme, which was the first serious attempt to organize and classify stars based on their temperatures and spectral types. She was nearly deaf throughout her career. She was a suffragist and a member of the National Women's Party.
- Alexei Vladimir "Alex" Filippenko (; born July 25, 1958) is an American astrophysicist and professor of astronomy at the University of California, Berkeley. Filippenko graduated from Dos Pueblos High School in Goleta, California. He received a Bachelor of Arts in physics from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1979 and a Ph.D. in astronomy from the California Institute of Technology in 1984, where he was a Hertz Foundation Fellow. He was a Miller Fellow at UC Berkeley and was subsequently appointed to a faculty position at the same institution. He was later named a Miller Research Professor for Spring 1996 and Spring 2005. His research focuses on supernovae and active galaxies at optical, ultraviolet, and near-infrared wavelengths.
- Frank Curtis "Curt" Michel, Ph.D. (June 5, 1934 – February 26, 2015) was an American astrophysicist; a professor of astrophysics at Rice University in Houston, Texas; a former United States Air Force pilot; and a NASA astronaut.
- Jeffrey Alan Hoffman (born November 2, 1944) is an American former NASA astronaut and currently a professor of aeronautics and astronautics at MIT. Hoffman made five flights as a Space Shuttle astronaut, including the first mission to repair the Hubble Space Telescope in 1993, when the orbiting telescope's flawed optical system was corrected. Trained as an astrophysicist, he also flew on the 1990 Spacelab Shuttle mission that featured the Astro-1 ultraviolet astronomical observatory in the Shuttle's payload bay. Over the course of his five missions he logged more than 1,211 hours and 21.5 million miles in space. He was also NASA's first Jewish male astronaut, and the second Jewish man in space after Soviet cosmonaut Boris Volynov.
- Gregory Benford (born January 30, 1941) is an American science fiction author and astrophysicist who is Professor Emeritus at the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of California, Irvine. He is a contributing editor of Reason magazine.Benford wrote the Galactic Center Saga science fiction novels, beginning with In the Ocean of Night (1977). The series postulates a galaxy in which sentient organic life is in constant warfare with sentient electromechanical life. In 1969 he wrote "The Scarred Man", the first story about a computer virus, published in 1970.
- Jerry Earl Nelson is an American astronomer known for his pioneering work designing segmented mirror telescopes, which led to him receiving the 2010 Kavli Prize for Astrophysics. He is the principal designer and project scientist for the Keck telescopes.
- James Gunn (born 1966) is an American filmmaker. James Gunn may also refer to: Sir James Gunn (explorer) of Scotland, member of Henry Sinclair's survey expedition James Gunn (senator) (1753–1801), American Senator from Georgia James Gunn (congressman) (1843–1911), American Congressman from Idaho James Gunn (politician), Tasmanian politician from the electoral district of Sorell (1872–1882) Sir Herbert James Gunn (1893–1964), British landscape and portrait painter James Gunn (screenwriter, born 1920) (1920–1966), American film and television screenwriter James E. Gunn (writer) (born 1923), American science fiction scholar and writer James E. Gunn (astronomer) (born 1938), American astronomer
Michael Rowan-Robinson
Michael Rowan-Robinson is an astronomer and astrophysicist. He was educated at Pembroke College, Cambridge and is Professor of Astrophysics and until May 2007 was Head of the Astrophysics Group at Imperial College London. From 1981 to 1982, he gave public lectures as professor of astronomy at Gresham College. He retired as president of the Royal Astronomical Society in 2008.- Josef Allen Hynek (May 1, 1910 – April 27, 1986) was an American astronomer, professor, and ufologist. He is perhaps best remembered for his UFO research. Hynek acted as scientific advisor to UFO studies undertaken by the U.S. Air Force under three consecutive projects: Project Sign (1947–1949), Project Grudge (1949–1952), and Project Blue Book (1952–1969). In later years he conducted his own independent UFO research, developing the "Close Encounter" classification system. He was among the first people to conduct scientific analysis of reports and especially of trace evidence purportedly left by UFOs.
John Carlstrom
John E. Carlstrom (born 1957) is an American astrophysicist, and Professor, Departments of Astronomy and Astrophysics, and Physics, at the University of Chicago.He graduated from Vassar College with a B.A. in 1981, and from the University of California, Berkeley with a Ph.D. in 1988. Carlstrom specializes in measurements of the Cosmic Microwave Background, and has led several experiments including the Degree Angular Scale Interferometer, the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich Array, and the South Pole Telescope.- Hubert Reeves (born July 13, 1932), is a French Canadian astrophysicist and popularizer of science.
- Stephen Erik Thorsett (born December 3, 1964) is an American professor and astronomer. His research interests include radio pulsars and gamma ray bursts. He is known for measurements of the masses of neutron stars and for the use of binary pulsars to test the theory of general relativity. Thorsett was a professor and dean at the University of California, Santa Cruz, before becoming president of Willamette University in July 2011.
- Richard A. Muller (born January 6, 1944) is an American physicist and professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley. He is also a faculty senior scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Most recently, in early 2010, Muller and his daughter Elizabeth founded the group Berkeley Earth, an independent 501(c)(3) non-profit aimed at addressing some of the major concerns of the climate change skeptics, in particular the global surface temperature record.
Jacob Barnett
Jacob L. "Jake" Barnett is an American physics student and child prodigy. According to a memoir penned by his mother, he was diagnosed with autism when he was 2 years old and was homeschooled by his parents. Barnett was admitted to the Perimeter Scholars International in 2013, a one year masters degree program at the Perimeter Institute in Waterloo, Ontario. At the age of 15, he was the youngest student admitted to the program since its inaugural class four years prior in 2009. He completed the program in 2014 and has subsequently been listed as a doctoral student at the Perimeter Institute.- Edward Arthur Milne FRS (; 14 February 1896 – 21 September 1950) was a British astrophysicist and mathematician.
- Ken Freeman may refer to: Ken Freeman (astronomer) (born 1940), Australian astronomer and astrophysicist Ken Freeman (composer) (born 1947), English composer and session musician
- George R. Blumenthal (born 1945) is an American astrophysicist, astronomer, professor, and academic administrator. He is the tenth chancellor of the University of California, Santa Cruz.
- Giorgio Abetti (5 October 1882 – 24 August 1982) was an Italian solar astronomer.He was born in Padua, the son of noted astronomer Antonio Abetti. He was educated at the Universities of Padua and of Rome.He began his career at the Collegio Romano observatory in Rome as an assistant astronomer. In 1921 he succeeded his father as the director of the Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri, and continued until 1957. Starting at the same time he was also a professor at the University of Florence, and continued in this capacity until 1957.Giorgio Abetti is noted for having led expeditions to observe solar eclipses to Siberia (1936) and Sudan (1952). He was also a visiting professor at the University of Cairo in 1948–49. He was the vice president of the International Astronomical Union in 1938, and received the Medaglia d'argento from the Italian Geographic Society (1915), the Premio reale from the Accademia dei Lincei (1925), and the Janssen medal (1937).In 1937, Abetti received the Prix Jules Janssen, the highest award of the Société astronomique de France, the French astronomical society. The crater Abetti on the Moon and asteroid 2646 Abetti are named to honor both him and his father.
- Joseph Hooton Taylor Jr. (born March 29, 1941) is an American astrophysicist and Nobel Prize in Physics laureate for his discovery with Russell Alan Hulse of a "new type of pulsar, a discovery that has opened up new possibilities for the study of gravitation."
- Charles Greeley Abbot (May 31, 1872 – December 17, 1973) was an American astrophysicist and the fifth secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, serving from 1928 until 1944. Abbot went from being director of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, to becoming Assistant Secretary, and then Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution over the course of his career. As an astrophysicist, he researched the solar constant, research that led him to invent the solar cooker, solar boiler, solar still, and other patented solar energy inventions.
- Steven Soter is an astrophysicist currently holding the positions of scientist-in-residence for New York University's Environmental Studies Program and of Research Associate for the Department of Astrophysics at the American Museum of Natural History. He is a proponent of the International Astronomical Union's definition of planet.
- Jacob Robert Emden (4 March 1862 – 8 October 1940) was a Swiss astrophysicist and meteorologist. He is best known for his book, Gaskugeln: Anwendungen der mechanischen Wärmetheorie auf kosmologische und meteorologische probleme (Gas balls: Applications of the mechanical heat theory to cosmological and meteorological problems), published in 1907. It presents a mathematical model of the behaviour of polytropic gaseous stellar objects under the influence their own gravity, known as the Lane-Emden equation.
- David Morrison (born 26 June 1940) is an American astronomer, a senior scientist at the Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute, at NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California. Morrison is the former director of the Carl Sagan Center for Study of Life in the Universe at the SETI Institute and of the NASA Lunar Science Institute . He is the past Director of Space at NASA Ames. Morrison is credited as the founder of the multi-disciplinary field of astrobiology. Morrison is best known for his work in risk assessment of near Earth objects such as asteroids and comets. Asteroid 2410 Morrison was named in his honor. Morrison is also known for his "Ask an Astrobiologist" series on NASA's website where he provides answers to questions submitted by the public. He has published 12 books and over 150 papers primarily on planetary science, astrobiology and near earth object .
- Cheick Modibo Diarra (born 1952) is a Malian astrophysicist, businessman, and politician who was acting Prime Minister of Mali from April 2012 to December 2012. On 11 December 2012, Diarra presented his resignation on state television in a broadcast at 4 a.m. local time, hours after soldiers who led the 2012 Malian coup d'état arrested him at his home in Bamako.
- David L. Lambert is a British-American Astronomer, who does research on stellar atmospheres, the chemical composition of stars, and the chemical evolution of the universe. Born in England, Lambert received his PhD in 1965 from the University of Oxford. In 1967 he became an immigrant to the USA to work at the California Institute of Technology, then in 1969 at the University of Texas at Austin, where in 1974 he became a professor. Beginning in 2003 he is the director of the McDonald Observatory of the University of Texas. David L. Lambert is a member of the International Astronomical Union.
- Svein Rosseland (March 31, 1894, Kvam, Hardanger – January 19, 1985, Bærum) was a Norwegian astrophysicist and a pioneer in the field of theoretical astrophysics.
- David Nathaniel Spergel (born March 25, 1961), is an American theoretical astrophysicist and Princeton University professor known for his work on the WMAP (Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe) mission. Spergel is a MacArthur Fellow. He is a member of the NASA Advisory Council and is chair of the Space Studies Board. He was once the W.M. Keck distinguished visiting professor at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. He was part of the team that originated the WMAP mission and designed the spacecraft, and has worked on deciphering the data that it beams back from space. Spergel is playing a leading role in developing the WFIRST (Wide Field Infrared Space Telescope), a multibillion-dollar space mission planned for launch in the mid-2020s. Spergel is the Charles A Young Professor of Astronomy and a member of the National Academy of Sciences. Spergel is the Founding Director of the Center for Computational Astrophysics. He shared the 2010 Shaw Prize in astronomy with Charles L. Bennett and Lyman Alexander Page, Jr. for their work on WMAP. He shared the 2015 Dannie Heineman Prize with Marc Kamionkowski "for their outstanding contributions to the investigation of the fluctuations of the cosmic microwave background that have led to major breakthroughs in our understanding of the universe".
- Eleanor Margaret Burbidge, FRS (née Peachey; born August 12, 1919) is a British-born American astrophysicist, noted for original research and holding many administrative posts, including Director of the Royal Greenwich Observatory. During her career, she served at the University of London Observatory, Yerkes Observatory of the University of Chicago, Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge, England, the California Institute of Technology, and, from 1979 to 1988, was first director of the Center for Astronomy and Space Sciences at the University of California San Diego, where she has worked since 1962.
Guillermo Gonzalez
Guillermo Gonzalez (born 1963 in Havana, Cuba) is an astrophysicist, a proponent of the principle of intelligent design, and an assistant professor at Ball State University, a public research university, in Muncie, Indiana. He is a senior fellow of the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture, considered the hub of the intelligent design movement, and a fellow with the International Society for Complexity, Information and Design, which also promotes intelligent design.
Emilios T. Harlaftis
Emilios T. Harlaftis (Greek: Αιμίλιος Χαρλαύτης; 29 March 1965, in Kiato – 13 February 2005, in Mainalo) was an astrophysicist. Harlaftis obtained an undergraduate degree in physics at the University of Athens in 1987, and a Ph.D. degree at the University of Oxford in 1991, under the supervision of Prof. Phil A. Charles. From 1991 to 1995 he worked as a support astronomer at the Isaac Newton Group of telescopes of the Royal Greenwich Observatory, placed at the Observatory of Roque de los Muchachos (owned by the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias at the island of La Palma. He then worked as a research assistant (1995–1997) at the University of St. Andrews and as a research fellow (1997–1998) at the Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics of the National Observatory of Athens, where he was appointed to a position of a tenure track researcher in 1999. He held a series of posts as a visiting scientist at the University of Sheffield, and the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (1999), and two years as a temporary Reader at the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of St. Andrews (2001–2002). He acted as a principal investigator for the Aristarchos 2.3 m Telescope located at the Chelmos mountain, which colleagues suggested to name after him, following his death in an avalanche accident. His main research contribution is the co-discovery of spiral waves in a solar-size accretion disk, pioneering analysis determining mass ratios of black hole systems using the Keck-I telescope, contribution to accretion disc physics and finally extensive analysis and image processing using the Doppler tomography technique with applications on interactive binaries resolving emission components such as the inner face of the companion star, the gas stream and the impact region of the gas stream on the accretion disk (bright spot). The article on this topic he co-wrote has been cited 72 times.- Ernst Arnold Kohlschütter (July 6, 1883 – May 28, 1969) was a German astronomer and astrophysicist from Halle. In 1908 he was awarded his Ph.D. from the University of Göttingen under Karl Schwarzschild.In 1911 he began working at the Mount Wilson observatory, studying the spectra of the Sun and stars. In collaboration with Walter Sidney Adams, and in 1914 they discovered that the absolute luminosity of a star was proportional to the relative intensity of the lines in the spectrum. This allowed astronomers to determine the distance of stars, including main sequence and giants, using the spectroscope. He became the director of the Bonn observatory in 1925. Therein he was dedicated to astrometric studies. The crater Kohlschütter on the Moon is named after him.
Brian Beckman
Brian Beckman is an astrophysicist and software engineer.Michel Mayor
Michel G.E. Mayor (born 12 January 1942, Lausanne) is a Swiss astrophysicist and professor emeritus at the University of Geneva's Department of Astronomy. He formally retired in 2007, but remains active as a researcher at the Observatory of Geneva. He is co-winner of the 2010 Viktor Ambartsumian International Prize, and the winner of the 2015 Kyoto Prize. Together with Didier Queloz in 1995 he discovered 51 Pegasi b, the first extrasolar planet orbiting a sun-like star, 51 Pegasi.Mayor holds MS in Physics from the University of Lausanne (1966) and PhD in Astronomy from the Geneva Observatory (1971). His thesis also had an article called "Essay on the kinematical properties of stars in the solar vicinity: possible relation with the galactic spiral structure." He was a researcher at the Institute of Astronomy at the University of Cambridge in 1971. Subsequently, he spent sabbatical semesters at the European Southern Observatory (ESO) in northern Chile and at the Institute for Astronomy of the University of Hawaii system.Johann Karl Friedrich Zöllner
Johann Karl Friedrich Zöllner (8 November 1834, Berlin – 25 April 1882, Leipzig) was a German astrophysicist who studied optical illusions. He was also an early psychical investigator.Margaret Geller
Margaret J. Geller (born December 8, 1947) is an American astrophysicist at the Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Her work has included pioneering maps of the nearby universe, studies of the relationship between galaxies and their environment, and the development and application of methods for measuring the distribution of matter in the universe.Donald C. Backer
Donald C. Backer (November 9, 1943 – July 25, 2010) was an American astrophysicist who primarily worked in radio astronomy. Backer made important contributions to the understanding and study of pulsars (including the discovery of the first millisecond pulsar), black holes, and the epoch of reionization.Richard McCray
Richard McCray is a 1975 Guggenheim Fellow in Natural Sciences.Petr Pavlovich Dobronravin
Petr Pavlovich Dobronravin (1908 - 2000) was an astrophysicist in the Soviet Union.James Binney
James Jeffrey Binney, FRS, FInstP (born April 12, 1950) is a British astrophysicist. He is a professor of physics at the University of Oxford and former head of the Sub-Department of Theoretical Physics as well as an Emeritus Fellow of Merton College. Binney is known principally for his work in theoretical galactic and extragalactic astrophysics, though he has made a number of contributions to areas outside of astrophysics as well.- Adolfo Figueroa-Viñas, Ph.D. is the first Puerto Rican astrophysicist at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and is an expert in solar and space plasma physics at the Heliophysics Science Division. As a staff scientist his research interests include studying plasma kinetic physics and magnetohydrodynamics of the solar wind, heliosphere, shock waves, MHD and kinetic simulation of plasma instabilities, and turbulent processes associated with space, solar and astrophysical plasmas.
Uros Seljak
Uros Seljak is Professor of Astronomy and Physics at the University of California, Berkeley.Kristian Pedersen
Chung-Pei Ma
Chung-Pei Ma is Professor of Astronomy at the University of California, Berkeley.Nikolai Aleksandrovich Kozyrev
Nikolai Alexandrovich Kozyrev (Russian: Никола́й Алекса́ндрович Ко́зырев; September 2, 1908 – February 27, 1983) was a Soviet astronomer/astrophysicist.Sallie Baliunas
Sallie Louise Baliunas (born February 23, 1953) is a retired astrophysicist. She formerly worked at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and at one point was the Deputy Director of the Mount Wilson Observatory.Barth Netterfield
Calvin Barth Netterfield, known as Barth Netterfield, is a Canadian astrophysicist, and a Professor in the Department of Astronomy and the Department of Physics at the University of Toronto. He is a leading expert in the development of balloon-borne telescopes. These are astrophysical experiments that are lifted into the stratosphere by high-altitude balloons where they conduct observations that would be hindered by atmospheric interference if done on the ground. Netterfield is primarily known for his work in observational cosmology, specifically in developing instrumentation to observe the cosmic microwave background radiation. Most notably, he was a key member of the instrument team for BOOMERANG, the experiment that made one of the first accurate determinations of the age, geometry, and mass-energy content of the universe. More recently, he has delved into the field of submillimetre astronomy and the physics of star formation, through his involvement with the BLAST telescope. Netterfield was featured prominently in BLAST!, a documentary film about the 2005 and 2006 flights of BLAST from Sweden and Antarctica.Marco Ajello
Marco Ajello is Senior Scientist at Space Sciences Lab, Berkeley. Previously he was a Research Associate at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology, or KIPAC. Dr Ajello's research interests include the origin of the high energy diffuse backgrounds, Compton thick AGN, Galaxy Clusters, and High-redshift blazars.Simonetta Di Pippo
Simonetta Di Pippo is an Italian astrophysicist and Director of the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs. Knighted by the President of the Italian Republic in 2006, the International Astronomical Union named asteroid 21887 "dipippo" as a recognition of her contribution to space exploration. In May 2013, the St. John's University in Vinovo awarded her with an Honoris Causa Degree in Environmental Studies.Rachel Dewey
Robert Rabilizirov
Jaymie Matthews
Jaymie Matthews is an astrophysics’ Professor at the University of British Columbia.George Greenstein
George Greenstein is an astrophysicist author of Portraits of Discovery and of The Quantum Challenge.Kronid Lyubarsky
Kronid Arkadyevich Lyubarsky (Russian: Крони́д Арка́дьевич Люба́рский; 4 April 1934, Pskov, Soviet Union – 23 May 1996, Bali, Indonesia) was a Russian journalist, dissident, human rights activist and political prisoner.
