David Louis Band or David L. Band (9 January 1957 – 16 March 2009) was an

astronomer An astronomer is a scientist in the field of astronomy who focuses their studies on a specific question or field outside the scope of Earth. They observe astronomical objects such as stars, planets, moons, comets and galaxies – in either ...

who studied the theory of

gamma-ray burst In gamma-ray astronomy, gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are immensely energetic explosions that have been observed in distant galaxies. They are the most energetic and luminous electromagnetic events since the Big Bang. Bursts can last from ten millise ...

Life

David Band was born January 9, 1957, in Boston, Massachusetts to a Jewish family. His father was Arnold Band, professor of Jewish and Hebrew literature at

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California S ...

(UCLA), and his mother was Ora Band, Hebrew teacher. After graduating from

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

(MIT) in Physics (1979), David continued as a graduate student in Physics at Harvard. He got his MA in 1980 and his Ph.D. Physics at Harvard in 1985 in the title of "''Non-thermal Radiation Mechanisms and Processes in SS 433 and Active Galactic Nuclei''", supervised by Prof. Jonathan Grindlay.

Scientific work

After he received his Ph.D. Dr. Band held postdoctoral positions at the

Lawrence Livermore Laboratory Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) is a federal research facility in Livermore, California, United States. The lab was originally established as the University of California Radiation Laboratory, Livermore Branch in 1952 in respons ...

, the

University of California at Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant uni ...

, and the Center for Astronomy and Space Sciences at the

University of California, San Diego The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego or colloquially, UCSD) is a public land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego is t ...

. He worked on the Burst and Transient Source Experiment ( BATSE) that was part of the

Compton Gamma Ray Observatory The Compton Gamma Ray Observatory (CGRO) was a space observatory detecting photons with photon energy, energies from 20 kElectronvolt#Properties, eV to 30 GeV, in Earth orbit from 1991 to 2000. The observatory featured four main tele ...

(CGRO), launched in 1991. He also proposed the functional form (termed the Band-function) for the description of the prompt spectra of the gamma-ray bursts. After the CGRO mission ended, Dr. Band moved to the

Los Alamos National Laboratory Los Alamos National Laboratory (often shortened as Los Alamos and LANL) is one of the sixteen research and development laboratories of the United States Department of Energy (DOE), located a short distance northwest of Santa Fe, New Mexico, ...

(LANL) where he worked mainly on classified research and continued to work on GRB energetics and spectra. When NASA planned two new follow-up missions to CGRO, the

Swift Gamma-Ray Burst Mission Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, previously called the Swift Gamma-Ray Burst Explorer, is a NASA three-telescope space observatory for studying gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) and monitoring the afterglow in X-ray, and UV/Visible light at the location o ...

and

Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope The Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope (FGST, also FGRST), formerly called the Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST), is a space observatory being used to perform gamma-ray astronomy observations from low Earth orbit. Its main instrument is ...

(formerly named Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST)) observatories, David Band seized an opportunity in 2001 to join the staff the Fermi Science Support Center at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC).

References

External links

* , personal * , Goddard Space Flight Center * {{DEFAULTSORT:Band, David Louis 1957 births 2009 deaths American astronomers Goddard Space Flight Center people Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni Massachusetts Institute of Technology School of Science alumni