Robert Kirshner
Robert Paul Kirshner (born August 15, 1949 in Long Branch , New Jersey ) is an American astronomer .
Life
Kirshner earned his bachelor's degree (magna cum laude) from Harvard College in 1970 and his PhD from Caltech in 1975 . After a post-doctoral period at Kitt Peak National Observatory , he was Assistant Professor (and later Professor of Astronomy) at the University of Michigan from 1976 , before becoming Professor at Harvard in 1986. From 1990 to 1997 he was chairman of the astronomy faculty and from 1998 to 2002 head of the Infrared and Optical Division of the Center of Astronomy.
In 2001 he became Clowes Professor of Science at Harvard University and in 2004 Harvard College Professor of Astronomy. In 2006/07 he was at the Kavli Institute .
In the late 1990s, as part of the High Z Supernova Team, he discovered the accelerated expansion of the universe . The group used Type Ia supernovae to measure distances . The director Brian P. Schmidt received the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2011 with Saul Perlmutter and Adam Riess .
In 1988 he became a Fellow of the American Physical Society . In 1998 he became a member of the National Academy of Sciences and he is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1992) and the American Philosophical Society . In 1979 he was a Sloan Research Fellow .
From 2003 to 2005 he was President of the American Astronomical Society .
He has been married to writer Jayne Loader since 1999 and is the father of TV producer Rebecca Rand Kirshner (Rebecca Sinclair).
Awards (selection)
- 2007 Gruber Prize for Cosmology with the High-z group
- 2011 Dannie Heineman Prize for Astrophysics
- 2014 James Craig Watson Medal
- 2015: Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics , as a member of the High-Z Supernova Search Team , together with Brian P. Schmidt and Adam Riess .
- 2015 Wolf Prize for Physics
Fonts
- The extravagant universe: exploding stars, dark energy and the accelerating universe. Princeton University Press 2002
literature
- Who's Who in America. 66th Edition, 2012, Volume 1: A – L. Marquis Who's Who, Berkeley Heights 2011, ISBN 978-0-8379-7031-8 (Volume 1), ISBN 978-0-8379-7035-6 (Complete Works ), ISSN 0083-9396 , p. 2403
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ WEDDINGS; Jayne Loader, Robert Kirshner . In: The New York Times . December 12, 1999, ISSN 0362-4331 ( online [accessed November 6, 2019]).
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Kirshner, Robert |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Kirshner, Robert Paul (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American astronomer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | August 15, 1949 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Long Branch , New Jersey |