Donald Osterbrock
| Donald Edward Osterbrock | |
|---|---|
| Born |
July 13, 1924 Cincinnati |
| Died | January 11, 2007 (aged 82) Santa Cruz |
| Nationality | United States |
| Fields | astronomy |
| Alma mater | University of Chicago |
| Doctoral advisor | Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar |
| Known for | star formation |
Donald Edward Osterbrock (July 13, 1924 – January 11, 2007) was an American astronomer, best known for his work on star formation and on the history of astronomy.
Osterbrock was born in Cincinnati. His father was an electrical engineer. He served with the US Army in the Second World War, making weather observations in the Pacific.
He was educated at the University of Chicago, where he received bachelor's and master's degrees in physics and a PhD in astronomy in 1952. He was a student of Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar while working at University of Chicago's Yerkes Observatory. His work there with William Wilson Morgan and Stewart Sharpless showed the existence of the Milky Way's spiral arms.
He became a post-doctoral researcher, instructor and Assistant Professor at the California Institute of Technology until 1958. He was then appointed Assistant Professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, received tenure there in 1959, and was promoted to full professor in 1961. He was a Guggenheim Fellow for the academic year 1960–1961. In 1973 he moved from Madison to the University of California at Santa Cruz, as Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics, and Director of Lick Observatory, a position he held until 1981. He remained on the faculty at UC Santa Cruz until his retirement in 1993. Thereafter, Emeritus Professor Osterbrock continued to make daily trips to his office on campus, to work on his research, to keep publishing, and to maintain an active role in the astronomical community.
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