Alexei Filippenko

Infobox Scientist
name = Alexei Vladimir Filippenko


imagesize =
birth_date = birth date and age|1958|07|25
birth_place = Oakland, California, USA
field = Astrophysics
work_institution = University of California, Berkeley
alma_mater = University of California, Santa Barbara, B.A.
California Institute of Technology, Ph.D.
known_for = Type Ia Supernova Studies
prizes = Newton Lacy Pierce Prize in Astronomy
Guggenheim Fellowship

Alexei Vladimir Filippenko (born July 25 1958, Oakland, California) is an American astrophysicist and professor of astronomy at the University of California, Berkeley. Filippenko received a Bachelor of Arts in physics from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1979 and a Ph.D. in astronomy from the California Institute of Technology in 1984. His research focuses on supernovae and active galaxies at optical, ultraviolet, and near-infrared wavelengths.

Filippenko was a member of the Supernova Cosmology Project and the High-z Supernova Search Team that used observations of extragalactic supernovae to discover the accelerating universe. This universal acceleration implies the existence of dark energy and was voted the top science breakthrough of 1998 by "Science" magazine. [cite journal | author=James Glanz | title=Breakthrough of the Year: Astronomy: Cosmic Motion Revealed | url=http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/282/5397/2156a | work=Science | volume=282 | issue=5397 | pages=pp 2156-2157 | doi=10.1126/science.282.5397.2156a | date=18 December 1998 | accessdate=2008-07-17]

Filippenko developed and runs the Katzman Automatic Imaging Telescope (KAIT), a fully robotic telescope which conducts the Lick Observatory Supernova Search (LOSS), the most successful nearby supernova search. He is also a member of the Nuker Team which uses the Hubble space telescope to examine supermassive black holes and determined the relationship between a galaxy's central black hole's mass and velocity dispersion. [cite web | author=Tod Lauer | title=HST Investigations Into the Central Structure of Galaxies | url=http://www.noao.edu/noao/staff/lauer/nuker.html | publisher=National Optical Astronomy Observatory | date=14 August 2007 | accessdate=2008-07-17] [cite journal | last=Gebhardt | first=Karl | coauthors=et al. | title=A Relationship between Nuclear Black Hole Mass and Galaxy Velocity Dispersion | journal=The Astrophysical Journal | volume=539 | issue=1 | pages=pp. L13-L16 | doi=10.1086/312840 | month=August | year=2000 | url=http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-bib_query?bibcode=2000ApJ...539L..13G&db_key=AST&data_type=HTML&format=&high=42c46b445624581 | accessdate=2008-07-17] He is the most cited astronomer for the ten year period between 1996 and 2006. [cite web | author= | title=Top 10 Researchers In Space Science: | url=http://www.in-cites.com/top/2006/fourth06-spa.html | work=In-cites | publisher=The Thomson Corporation | date=November 2006 | accessdate=2008-07-17]

Honours and awards

Filippenko was awarded the Newton Lacy Pierce Prize in Astronomy in 1992 and a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2000. In addition to recognition for his scholarship, he has received numerous honors for his undergraduate teaching, including the Carl Sagan Prize for Science Popularization in 2004. [cite web | author= | title=Carl Sagan Prize for Science Popularization | url=http://www.wonderfest.org/html/sagan_prize_info.html | publisher=Wonderfest | date=2004 | accessdate=2008-07-17] In 2006 Filippenko was awarded the US Professor of the Year Award, sponsored by The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and administered by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE). [cite news | author=Robert Sanders | title=Astronomer Alex Filippenko named national Professor of the Year | url=http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2006/11/16_case.shtml | work=UC Berkeley News |publisher=University of California, Berkeley| date=16 November 2006 | accessdate=2008-07-12]

References

External links

* [http://astro.berkeley.edu/~alex/ Alexei Filippenko official webpage]
* [http://webcast.berkeley.edu/course_details.php?seriesid=1906978237 Introduction to General Astronomy] - UC Berkeley Webcast