Wheeler Elected President of AAS

Members of the American Astronomical Society recently elected J. Craig Wheeler as their president-elect. Wheeler, who took office at the society’s annual meeting in June, will serve as president-elect until June 2006, when he will serve as president until June 2008. He succeeds Robert Kirshner (see Physics Today, April 2003, page 79 ,).

Wheeler received his BS in physics from MIT in 1965 and his PhD in physics from the University of Colorado in 1969. His research interests include supernovae, black holes, gamma-ray bursts, and astrobiology, and he heads the Supernova Research Group at the University of Texas at Austin (UT). Wheeler serves on the space studies board of the National Research Council and is co-chair of the NRC committee on the origin and evolution of life. He is a member of the University of Texas Academy of Distinguished Teachers.

Currently, Wheeler is the Samuel T. and Fern Yanagisawa Regents Professor of Astronomy at UT. He has published about 300 papers in refereed journals and conference proceedings, edited five books, and published a popular-level book, Cosmic Catastrophes: Supernovae, Gamma-Ray Bursts and Adventures in Hyperspace (Cambridge U. Press, 2000).

“I’m honored and pleased to take on this office and I’m looking forward to leading a very healthy and vibrant Society,” Wheeler says. “Current issues facing the Society are the fate of the Hubble Space Telescope and integrating astronomical research with the goal of sending humans to the Moon and Mars.”

In other AAS election results, Paul A. Vanden Bout (National Radio Astronomy Observatory) will serve a three-year term as society vice president and Hervey Stockman (Space Telescope Science Institute) will serve a three-year term as society treasurer. Michael A’Hearn (University of Maryland) is the new publications board chair and Paul Hodge (University of Washington) is the society’s new member of the US National Committee for the International Astronomical Union. Also, Lee W. Hartmann (Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics), Suzanne L. Hawley (University of Washington), and James S. Ulvestad (National Radio Astronomy Observatory) will serve three-year terms as AAS councilors.