Donald E. Osterbrock

Donald E. Osterbrock is a world-renowned research astrophysicist, Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics Emeritus at Lick Observatory of the University of California, Santa Cruz. He was its director for eight years. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago at its Yerkes Observatory, was a postdoctoral fellow at Princeton University, and was a faculty member at the California Institute of Technology, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and was a staff member of Mount Wilson and Palomar Observatories. Dr. Osterbrock was a council member of the National Academy of Sciences. He was president of the American Astronomical Society 1988-90, and was named its Henry Norris Russell lecturer, its highest honor, in 1991.  He taught astronomy and astrophysics courses at Caltech, Wisconsin, and UCSC, and many of the current leaders of astrophysical research on nebulae and active galactic nuclei worked with him as Ph.D.-thesis students or as postdoctoral research associates.