Gerry Neugebauer - 1932–2014

Abstract

Gerry Neugebauer was one of a small band of experimental physicists who used their perspectives to create a new discipline within astrophysics. Together they founded what is now known as infrared astronomy. Gerry’s commitment to innovative instruments and sky surveys exploring the unknown universe was matched by his commitment to the highest quality of published and archived data, which were vital to the creation of a dominant discipline in modern observational astrophysics. His discovery of many new kinds of celestial objects and phenomena, studies of which have remained vibrant subfields of astrophysics to this day, brought many others into the field that he helped invent. Neugebauer did his undergraduate study at Cornell University and earned a Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). After receiving his doctorate, he spent two years at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in performance of his military obligation as a reserve officer, working on the Mariner 2 Spacecraft project. He then joined the Caltech faculty and remained there in successively higher positions, eventually becoming chairman of the Division of Physics, Mathematics and Astronomy, as well as director of the Palomar Observatory.