Dr. Thomas A. Prince is the Ira S. Bowen Professor of Physics at the

California Institute of Technology The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech) is a private research university in Pasadena, California, United States. The university is responsible for many modern scientific advancements and is among a small group of institutes ...

and holds a joint appointment with Caltech’s NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) as a senior research scientist. Between May 2001 and June 2006, Prince was the chief scientist at JPL. He is currently the director and Allen V.C. Davis and Lenabelle Davis Leadership Chair for the W. M. Keck Institute for Space Studies at Caltech.

Research and career

Prince began his research career in experimental cosmic ray astrophysics before coming to the

Caltech The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech) is a private university, private research university in Pasadena, California, United States. The university is responsible for many modern scientific advancements and is among a small g ...

campus to work in the area of experimental gamma ray astronomy, collaborating with the high-energy astrophysics group at

JPL The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is a federally funded research and development center (FFRDC) in La Cañada Flintridge, California, Crescenta Valley, United States. Founded in 1936 by California Institute of Technology (Caltech) researche ...

. Prince became a Millikan Fellow in 1980 and joined the Caltech professorial faculty in 1983. Detection and study of neutron stars and black holes has been a continuing theme in Prince's research, starting with his gamma ray observations of compact objects in the

Galactic Center The Galactic Center is the barycenter of the Milky Way and a corresponding point on the rotational axis of the galaxy. Its central massive object is a supermassive black hole of about 4 million solar masses, which is called Sagittarius A*, a ...

region. He participated in several expeditions to the Australian outback in the late 1980s to make balloon observations of the radioactive decay energy from

Supernova 1987a SN 1987A was a Type II supernova in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a dwarf satellite galaxy of the Milky Way. It occurred approximately from Earth and was the closest observed supernova since Kepler's Supernova in 1604. Light and neutrinos f ...

. During the late 1980s and 1990s, Prince became interested in the evolving field of

parallel computing Parallel computing is a type of computing, computation in which many calculations or Process (computing), processes are carried out simultaneously. Large problems can often be divided into smaller ones, which can then be solved at the same time. ...

which he applied to several areas of astronomy including radio, x-ray and gamma-ray pulsar detection, imaging infrared surveys, optical interferometric imaging, and development of virtual observatory capabilities. Prince chaired the consortium that developed the Intel Touchstone Delta, one of the early large-scale general-purpose parallel computers. He was also one of the initiators of the US National Virtual Observatory. Starting in the late 1990s, Prince began to work on development of techniques for detection of gravitational waves from neutron star and black hole systems. He was NASA Mission Scientist and chair of the US science team for the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) and was earlier a member of the ground-based Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO). Most recently, Prince has been using the

Palomar Transient Factory The Palomar Transient Factory (PTF, obs. code: I41), was an astronomical survey using a wide-field survey camera designed to search for optical transient and variable sources such as variable stars, supernovae, asteroids and comets. The projec ...

to carry out time-domain studies of astronomical sources, including ultra-compact binaries. Among the positions that Prince has held are: associate director
Caltech Center for Advanced Computing Research (CACR)
member of the National Research Council Commission on Physical Sciences, Mathematics, and applications; co-chair of the National Research Council Committee on Astronomy and Astrophysics; and chair of the NASA Gamma Ray Observatory Users' Committee. He is also a Fellow of the

American Physical Society The American Physical Society (APS) is a not-for-profit membership organization of professionals in physics and related disciplines, comprising nearly fifty divisions, sections, and other units. Its mission is the advancement and diffusion of ...

and has received the

NASA Distinguished Service Medal The NASA Distinguished Service Medal is the highest award that can be bestowed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration of the United States. The medal may be presented to any member of the federal government, including both milita ...

. Prince is an avi
amateur photographer
working in the near-infrared region of the spectrum.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Prince, Thomas 21st-century American physicists California Institute of Technology faculty Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Fellows of the American Physical Society