Alan P. Boss (born in

Lakewood, Ohio Lakewood is a city in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, Cuyahoga County, Ohio, United States, on the southern shore of Lake Erie. Established in 1889, it is one of Cleveland's historical streetcar suburbs and part of the Greater Cleveland, Greater Clevelan ...

) is a United States astrophysicist and

planetary scientist Planetary science (or more rarely, planetology) is the scientific study of planets (including Earth), celestial bodies (such as moons, asteroids, comets) and planetary systems (in particular those of the Solar System) and the processes of th ...

Life and career

Educated at the University of South Florida and the University of California, Santa Barbara, Boss is a prominent scientist in stellar and planetary system formation and the study of extrasolar planets who has made highly cited contributions to the study of gas giant planet and binary star system formation. He has published hundreds of articles in these areas and related fields. He is currently a Staff Member at the Carnegie Institution for Science in the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism. He was married to Catherine Ann Starkie and has two children. Boss was selected to join the NASA Science Working Group for the Kepler Mission and the NASA External Independent Readiness Board for the Exoplanet Exploration Program, both charged with the detection and characterization of nearby habitable Earth-like planets. Boss is a fellow of numerous scientific academies and societies and regularly chairs working groups in his field.

Achievements

Boss received a NASA Group Achievement Award in 2008 for his role in the Astrobiology Roadmap.

Bibliography

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External links

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Talk of Alan Boss at the Origins 2011 congress

Sources

1951 births Living people American astronomers People from Lakewood, Ohio University of South Florida alumni University of California, Santa Barbara alumni NASA people Planetary scientists {{US-astronomer-stub