Robert Kirshner
| Robert P. Kirshner | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born | August 15, 1949 |
| Fields | Astrophysics |
| Institutions |
Harvard University University of Michigan |
| Alma mater |
Harvard College (A.B.), California Institute of Technology (Ph.D.) |
| Known for | Type Ia Supernova Studies, Large Scale Structure, supernova remnants |
| Notable awards | Caltech Distinguished Alumni Award Dannie Heineman Prize for Astrophysics (2011) James Craig Watson Medal (2014) Wolf Prize in Physics (2015) |
Robert P. Kirshner (born August 15, 1949) is an American astronomer, currently the Clowes Professor of Science at Harvard University. Kirshner has worked in several areas of astronomy including the physics of supernovae, supernova remnants, the Large-scale structure of the cosmos and the use of Supernovae to measure the expansion of the universe.
In 1981, along with Augustus Oemler, Jr., Paul Schechter, and Stephen Shectman, Kirshner discovered the Boötes void in a survey of galaxy redshifts. He led work on SN 1987A, the brightest supernova since Kepler's in 1604, using the International Ultraviolet Explorer satellite in 1987 and the Hubble Space Telescope after its launch in 1990. In the 1990s, together with Oemler, Schechter, Shectman and others he participated in the Las Campanas Redshift Survey, a 35,000 galaxy survey using fiber optics and plug plates.
Kirshner was a member of the High-z Supernova Search Team that used observations of distant supernovae to discover the accelerating universe. This universal acceleration implies the existence of dark energy and was named the breakthrough of 1998 by Science magazine. For this work, he also shared in the 2007 Gruber Cosmology Prize. Brian Schmidt and Adam Riess, both of whom were Kirshner's Ph.D students, shared in the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics for the same discovery. His account of this discovery is described in The Extravagant Universe : Exploding Stars, Dark Energy, and the Accelerating Cosmos (2002; ). He has been a member of the National Academy of Sciences since 1998, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences since 1992 and the American Philosophical Society since 2005. He was the President of the American Astronomical Society from 2004-2006. In July, 2015 he was appointed chief program officer for science at the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, where he is leading the team responsible for distributing more than $100 million per year for research and technology that enables fundamental scientific discoveries.
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