| | 41 | Name: | Dr. Alar Toomre | | | Institution: | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | | | Year Elected: | 2016 | | | Class: | 1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 101. Astronomy | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Living
| | | Birth Date: | 1937 | | | | | | |
Alar Toomre has been a true pioneer with his elegant and prescient studies, starting more than 40 years ago, of the evolution of the structure of galaxies. He introduced to these studies numerical simulations at a time when very clever approaches were needed to obtain useful results, due to the limitations of computer capabilities in that era. He also developed the deep stability criterion, the so-called Q criterion, for differentially rotating stellar disks. He was, in addition, the first to suggest and demonstrate that elliptical galaxies result from collisions of spiral galaxies. His early studies of galactic mergers were spectacular achievements. Overall, Toomre’s work has had a profound influence on the understanding of galactic dynamics and has largely set the direction of research in this now very vigorous and active field. Finally he made some substantial contributions to our understanding of the motions of the Earth about its center of mass. Among other awards, Toomre was awarded the 2014 Magellanic Premium of the American Philosophical Society in recognition of his beautiful and prescient numerical simulations over 40 years ago of the interactions of galaxies ("Galactic Bridges and Tails," carried out with his brother, Juri), and for his development a half century ago of the key local stability criterion (the "Q" criterion) for differentially rotating disks in galaxies. | |
| 42 | Name: | Dr. J. Anthony Tyson | | | Institution: | University of California, Davis | | | Year Elected: | 2000 | | | Class: | 1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 101. Astronomy | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Living
| | | Birth Date: | 1940 | | | | | | |
J. Anthony Tyson received a Ph.D. in physics at the University of Wisconsin in 1967. He joined the technical staff at AT&T Bell Laboratories in 1969 and was Distinguished Member of Technical Staff (now Lucent Technologies) from 1985-2004. Since 2004 he has been Distinguished Professor in the Department of Physics at University of California, Davis. He is currently director of the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope project. Dr. Tyson's research emphasis has been in experimental gravitation and cosmology. Applying advanced imaging with CCDs, he discovered "faint blue galaxies." Using this backdrop of billions of galaxies, he developed a technique for imaging foreground dark matter concentrations via their gravitational lensing of the distant galaxies. Gravitational lensing, it is believed, will go a long way toward solving the question of how much dark matter there is in the universe and where it is. Eventually, gravitational lensing will help to understand how structure formed in the universe. Dr. Tyson is the recipient of the Gravity Research Foundation Essay Award (1970), IR100 Award, Industrial Research (1985), and the Aaronson Memorial Prize (1996). He is a member of American Academy of Arts & Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences. He was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 2000. | |
| 43 | Name: | Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson | | | Institution: | American Museum of Natural History | | | Year Elected: | 2021 | | | Class: | 1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 101. Astronomy | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Living
| | | Birth Date: | 1958 | | | | | | |
Neil deGrasse Tyson was born and raised in New York City where he was educated in the public schools clear through his graduation from the Bronx High School of Science. Tyson went on to earn his BA in Physics from Harvard and his PhD in Astrophysics from Columbia.
In 2001, Tyson was appointed by President Bush to serve on a twelve-member commission that studied the Future of the U.S. Aerospace Industry. The final report was published in 2002 and contained recommendations (for Congress and for the major agencies of the government) that would promote a thriving future of transportation, space exploration, and national security.
In 2004, Tyson was once again appointed by President Bush to serve on a nine-member commission on the Implementation of the United States Space Exploration Policy, dubbed the “Moon, Mars, and Beyond” commission. This group navigated a path by which the new space vision can become a successful part of the American agenda. And in 2006, the head of NASA appointed Tyson to serve on its prestigious Advisory Council, which guides NASA through its perennial need to fit ambitious visions into restricted budgets.
In addition to dozens of professional publications, Dr. Tyson has written, and continues to write for the public. From 1995 to 2005, Tyson was a monthly essayist for Natural History magazine under the title Universe. And among Tyson’s fifteen books is his memoir The Sky is Not the Limit: Adventures of an Urban Astrophysicist; and Origins: Fourteen Billion Years of Cosmic Evolution, co-written with Donald Goldsmith. Origins is the companion book to the PBS NOVA four-part mini-series Origins, in which Tyson served as on-camera host. The program premiered in September 2004.
Two of Tyson’s other books are the playful and informative Death By Black Hole and Other Cosmic Quandaries, which was a New York Times bestseller, and The Pluto Files: The Rise and Fall of America’s Favorite Planet, chronicling his experience at the center of the controversy over Pluto’s planetary status. The PBS NOVA documentary The Pluto Files, based on the book, premiered in March 2010.
In February 2012, Tyson released his tenth book, containing every thought he has ever had on the past, present, and future of space exploration: Space Chronicles: Facing the Ultimate Frontier.
For five seasons, beginning in the fall of 2006, Tyson appeared as the on-camera host of PBS NOVA’s spinoff program NOVA ScienceNOW, which is an accessible look at the frontier of all the science that shapes the understanding of our place in the universe.
During the summer of 2009 Tyson identified a cadre of professional standup comedians to assist his effort in bringing science to commercial radio with the NSF-funded pilot program StarTalk. Now also a popular Podcast, for three years it enjoyed a limited-run Television Series on the National Geographic Channel. StarTalk combines celebrity guests with informative yet playful banter. The target audience is all those people who never thought they would, or could, like science. In its first year on television and in three successive seasons, it was nominated for a Best Informational Programming Emmy.
Tyson is the recipient of twenty-one honorary doctorates and the NASA Distinguished Public Service Medal, the highest award given by NASA to a non-government citizen. His contributions to the public appreciation of the cosmos have been recognized by the International Astronomical Union in their official naming of asteroid “13123 Tyson.” And by zoologists, with the naming of Indirani Tysoni, a native species of leaping frog in India. On the lighter side, Tyson was voted “Sexiest Astrophysicist Alive” by People Magazine in 2000.
More recently, Tyson published Astrophysics for People In A Hurry in 2017, which was a domestic and international bestseller. This adorably readable book is an introduction to all that you’ve read and heard about that’s making news in the universe—consummated, in one place, succinctly presented, for people in a hurry.
That was followed in 2018 by Accessory to War: The Unspoken Alliance Between Astrophysics and the Military, coauthored with Avis Lang, in 2019 by Letters from an Astrophysicist, both New York Times Bestsellers, and in 2021 by Cosmic Queries: StarTalk’s Guide to Who We Are, How We Got Here, and Where We are Going, coauthored with James Trefil.
Tyson served as Executive Science Editor and on-camera Host & Narrator for Cosmos: A SpaceTime Odyssey, the 21st century continuation of Carl Sagan’s landmark television series. The show began in March 2014 and ran thirteen episodes in primetime on the FOX network, and appeared in 181 countries in 45 languages around the world on the National Geographic Channels. Cosmos won four Emmy Awards, a Peabody Award, two Critics Choice awards, as well as a dozen other industry recognitions. Tyson reprised his role as on-camera host for the next season of Cosmos—Cosmos: Possible Worlds, which premiered on the National Geographic Channel in March 2020 and on the FOX network in September 2020.
Tyson is the fifth head of the world-renowned Hayden Planetarium in New York City and the first occupant of its Frederick P. Rose Directorship. He is also a research associate of the Department of Astrophysics at the American Museum of Natural History.
Neil deGrasse Tyson lives in New York City with his wife, a former IT project manager with Bloomberg Financial Markets. | |
| 44 | Name: | Dr. Fred L. Whipple | | | Institution: | Harvard University | | | Year Elected: | 1956 | | | Class: | 1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 101. Astronomy | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1906 | | | Death Date: | August 30, 2004 | | | | |
| 45 | Name: | Dr. Robert W. Wilson | | | Institution: | Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory | | | Year Elected: | 2009 | | | Class: | 1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 101. Astronomy | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Living
| | | Birth Date: | 1936 | | | | | | |
Robert W. Wilson is a Senior Scientist at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory of the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge Massachusetts. He is technical leader of the Sub-Millimeter Array, an 8 element synthesis radio telescope built by SAO in conjunction with ASIAA near the summit of Mauna Kea, Hawaii.
From 1977 until 1994 Dr. Wilson was Head of the Wireless Technology Research Department (formerly Radio Physics Research Dept.) of Bell Laboratories in Holmdel, N.J. The Wireless Technology Research Department did applied research on wireless access: components and subsystems, new applications of simple inexpensive systems, and design and architectures which support higher levels of integration. In its former incarnation, the Radio Physics Research Department did research on microwave and millimeter-wave semiconductor devices and components as well as radio astronomy at those wavelengths.
Dr. Wilson received a B.A. "With Honors in Physics" from Rice University in 1957 and a Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology in 1962. After a year at the Caltech Owens Valley Radio Observatory as a postdoctoral fellow, he joined Bell Laboratories as a member of technical staff.
His early work was in the fields of Galactic radio astronomy and precision measurement of radio source strengths. He is best known for his part in the discovery in 1964 of the 3~K cosmic black body background radiation, thought to have originated in the early stages of the expansion of the universe. In 1970 he and his co-workers extended radio spectroscopy of the interstellar medium to short millimeter wavelengths where they discovered a number of interstellar molecules including Carbon Monoxide. His work in the resulting field of molecular cloud astronomy has been concentrated on the structure of nearby molecular clouds with interpretations based on observations of several molecular species in each region. He has also applied astronomical techniques to the measurement of earth-space propagation for satellite communication at centimeter and infrared wavelengths and made infrared propagation measurements along a terrestrial path. His most recent work at Bell Labs was in wireless communications and optical networking and resulted in a number of patents.
He is a co-recipient of the Henry Draper Medal from the U.S. National Academy of Science and the Herschel Medal from the Royal Astronomical Society, London and the 1978 Nobel Prize in Physics.
He is a member of the American Astronomical Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the International Astronomical Union, the International Union of Radio Science, the American Physical Society, the National Academy of Sciences, The American Philosophical Society, and was a member of the 1990 Astronomy and Astrophysics Survey Committee (Bahcall Committee). | |
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