Alan Michael Dressler (born 23 March 1948) is an American
astronomer
An astronomer is a scientist in the field of astronomy who focuses on a specific question or field outside the scope of Earth. Astronomers observe astronomical objects, such as stars, planets, natural satellite, moons, comets and galaxy, galax ...
at the
Carnegie Institution for Science
The Carnegie Institution for Science, also known as Carnegie Science and the Carnegie Institution of Washington, is an organization established to fund and perform scientific research in the United States. This institution is headquartered in W ...
of
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...
Among his works is the popularization ''Voyage To The Great Attractor: Exploring Intergalactic Space''.
Dressler was born in
Cincinnati
Cincinnati ( ; colloquially nicknamed Cincy) is a city in Hamilton County, Ohio, United States, and its county seat. Settled in 1788, the city is located on the northern side of the confluence of the Licking River (Kentucky), Licking and Ohio Ri ...
,
Ohio
Ohio ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Erie to the north, Pennsylvania to the east, West Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Indiana to the ...
, graduated from
Walnut Hills High School
Walnut Hills High School is a public college-preparatory high school in Cincinnati, Ohio. Operated by Cincinnati Public Schools, it houses grades seven through twelve. The school was established in 1895 and has occupied its current building s ...
in 1966, and received his
bachelor's degree
A bachelor's degree (from Medieval Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six years ...
in
physics
Physics is the scientific study of matter, its Elementary particle, fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge whi ...
in 1970 from the
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...
and his
doctorate
A doctorate (from Latin ''doctor'', meaning "teacher") or doctoral degree is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism '' licentia docendi'' ("licence to teach ...
in astronomy in 1976 from the
University of California, Santa Cruz
The University of California, Santa Cruz (UC Santa Cruz or UCSC) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Santa Cruz, California, United States. It is one of the ten campuses in the University of C ...
. His primary professional interests lie in
cosmology
Cosmology () is a branch of physics and metaphysics dealing with the nature of the universe, the cosmos. The term ''cosmology'' was first used in English in 1656 in Thomas Blount's ''Glossographia'', with the meaning of "a speaking of the wo ...
, birth and evolution of
galaxies
A galaxy is a system of stars, stellar remnants, interstellar gas, dust, and dark matter bound together by gravity. The word is derived from the Greek ' (), literally 'milky', a reference to the Milky Way galaxy that contains the Solar Sys ...
, astronomical instrumentation, and extragalactic astronomy.
From 1993 to 1995 Dressler chaired the
Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) committee "HST & Beyond: Exploration and the Search for Origins" that provided NASA with the document "A Vision for Ultraviolet-Optical-Infrared Space Astronomy". He was a member of the
Nuker Team and the
Morphs collaboration
The Morphs collaboration was a coordinated study to determine the morphologies of galaxies in distant clusters and to investigate the evolution of galaxies as a function of environment and epoch. Eleven clusters were examined and a detailed ground- ...
which studied the evolution of spiral galaxies using the
Magellan Telescopes
The Magellan Telescopes are a pair of optical telescopes located at Las Campanas Observatory in Chile. The two telescopes are named after the astronomer Walter Baade and the philanthropist Landon T. Clay. First light for the telescopes was on ...
and the
Hubble Space Telescope
The Hubble Space Telescope (HST or Hubble) is a space telescope that was launched into low Earth orbit in 1990 and remains in operation. It was not the Orbiting Solar Observatory, first space telescope, but it is one of the largest and most ...
. Dressler was chairman of the Origins Subcommittee (OS) for
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...
from 2000 to 2003, but declined membership in the
Review of Near-Earth Object Surveys and Hazard Mitigation Strategies, Survey/Detection Panel. Dressler is currently working on the Inamori Magellan Areal Camera and Spectrograph (IMACS) Cluster Building Survey which studies the evolution of stellar structures and populations in distant galaxy clusters, which means the events observed took place four to seven billion years ago. He is also a member of the Terrestrial Planet Finder Coronograph Science and technology definition team.
Awards
In 1983 Dressler received the
Newton Lacy Pierce Prize in Astronomy from the
American Astronomical Society
The American Astronomical Society (AAS, sometimes spoken as "double-A-S") is an American society of professional astronomers and other interested individuals, headquartered in Washington, DC. The primary objective of the AAS is to promote the adv ...
He was elected to the
United States National Academy of Sciences
The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...
in the field of
astronomy
Astronomy is a natural science that studies celestial objects and the phenomena that occur in the cosmos. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and their overall evolution. Objects of interest includ ...
in 1996. In 1999 he received the
Public Service Medal from NASA. In 2017 the AURA "HST and Beyond" Committee, chaired by Dressler, was awarded the
Carl Sagan Memorial Award.
Notes
External links
Oral history interview transcript with Alan Dressler on 24 February 2021, American Institute of Physics, Niels Bohr Library & Archives"Alan Dressler"Carnegie Institution for Science
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dressler, Alan
American cosmologists
Living people
University of California, Berkeley alumni
University of California, Santa Cruz alumni
Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences
20th-century American astronomers
21st-century American astronomers
1948 births
Walnut Hills High School alumni
Recipients of the Newton Lacy Pierce Prize in Astronomy