Present PositionSenior Astrophysicist and Goddard FellowSenior Project Scientist, James Webb Space Telescope Brief BioDr. John C. Mather is a Senior Astrophysicist in the Observational Cosmology Laboratory at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. His research centers on infrared astronomy and cosmology. As an NRC postdoctoral fellow at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (New York City), he led the proposal efforts for the Cosmic Background Explorer (74-76), and came to GSFC to be the Study Scientist (76-88), Project Scientist (88-98), and also the Principal Investigator for the Far IR Absolute Spectrophotometer (FIRAS) on COBE. He showed that the cosmic microwave background radiation has a blackbody spectrum within 50 ppm. As Senior Project Scientist (95-present) for the James Webb Space Telescope, he leads the science team, and represents scientific interests within the project management. He has served on advisory and working groups for the National Academy of Sciences, NASA, and the NSF (for the ALMA, the Atacama Large Millimeter Array, and for the CARA, the Center for Astrophysical Research in the Antarctic). He is a member of the Astrophysics Subcommittee of the NASA Advisory Committee and of the Standing Review Board for the Kepler project. Read more about John Mather on his web site. Educational Background1968 B.A. (Physics), Swarthmore College, (Highest Honors, Phi Beta Kappa)1974 Ph.D. (Physics), Univ. of California at Berkeley (4.0 GPA) AwardsOpen Scholarship (honorary), Swarthmore, 1964-68 Putnam national math contest, 1967, 30th place nationwide Highest possible score (990), physics Grad Records, 1968 Highest Honors and Phi Beta Kappa, Swarthmore 1968 NSF Fellowship and honorary Woodrow Wilson Fellowship 1968-70 Hertz Foundation Fellowship, 1970-74 Group Achievement Award, GSFC, 1978 Exceptional Achievement Award, GSFC, 1986 Certificate of Recognition, Inventions and Contributions, GSFC, 1986 John C. Lindsay Memorial Award (NASA-GSFC), 1990 Group Achievement Award (NASA-GSFC), 1990 NASA Exceptional Scientific Achievement Award, 1991 NASA Group Achievement Award, 1991 Rotary National Space Achievement Award, 1991 National Air and Space Museum Trophy, 1991 Aviation Week and Space Technology Laurels, 1992, for Space/Missiles Discover Magazine Technology Award finalist, 1993 American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Space Science Award, 1993 Dannie Heineman Prize for Astrophysics, American Astronomical Society and American Institute of Physics, 1993 (presented Jan. 1994) Senior Astrophysicist (3104 position), 1993, GSFC Goddard Fellow, 1994, GSFC Honorary Doctor of Science Degree, Swarthmore College, 1994 John Scott Award, City of Philadelphia, 1995 Rumford Prize, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1996 Fellow, American Physical Society, 1996 Hall of Fame, Aviation Week and Space Technology, 1997 Member, National Academy of Sciences, 1997 GSFC Group Achievement Award, Next Generation Space Telescope, 1997 Marc Aaronson Memorial Prize, 1998 Member, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1998 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Physics, Franklin Institute, 1999 NASA/GSFC Outstanding Teamwork award for NGST SEB, 1999 Newton (NJ) High School Hall of Fame, 2003 Presidential Rank Distinguished Performance award, NASA, 2003 George W. Goddard Award, Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers, 2005 Cosmology Prize, with COBE Team, Peter Gruber Foundation, 2006 Nobel Prize in Physics, with George Smoot, 2006 Robinson prize, University of Newcastle, 2008 Research InterestsCosmology, Far IR astronomy and instrumentation, Fourier transform spectroscopy, large space telescopes, interplanetary dust, diffuse background radiationCurrent Projects
Selected PublicationsJ.C. Mather and J. Boslough, "The Very First Light," Basic Books, New York, 1996, 2008.D.J. Fixsen, E.S. Cheng, J.M. Gales, J.C. Mather, R.A. Shafer, and E.L. Wright, "The Cosmic Microwave Background Spectrum from the Full COBE FIRAS Data Set," Astrophysical Journal, 473, 576, 1996. R.A. Shafer, J.C. Mather, D.J. Fixen, K.A. Jensen, W.T. Reach, E. Dwek, and E.S. Cheng, "The Far Infrared Background as Measured by COBE FIRAS I: Limits from Dark Sky Measurements," Astrophysical Journal, 470, 681, 1996. N.N. Gor'kavyi, L.M. Ozernoy, and J.C. Mather, "A New approach to Dynamical Evolution of Interplanetary Dust," Astrophysical Journal, 474, 496, 1996. D.J. Fixsen, G. Hinshaw, C.L. Bennett, J.C. Mather, "The Spectrum of the CMB Anisotropy from the Combined COBE FIRAS and DMR Observations," Astrophysical Journal, 486, 1997. Fixsen, D.J., Weiland, J.L., Brodd, S., Hauser, M.G., Kelsall, T., Leisawitz, D.T., Mather, J.C., Jensen, K.A., Shafer, R.A., and Silverberg, R.F., “The Comparison of the FIRAS and DIRBE Calibrations,” ApJ, 490, 482, 1997 Fixsen, D. J., Mather, J. C., “The Spectral Results of the Far-Infrared Absolute Spectrophotometer Instrument on COBE,” ApJ, 581, Issue 2, pp. 817-822, 2002 Ipatov, Sergei I., Mather, John C., “Migration of Trans-Neptunian Objects to the Terrestrial Planets,” Earth, Moon, and Planets, v. 92, Issue 1, p. 89-98 (2003). Daniel F. Lester, Harold W. Yorke, John C. Mather, “Does the Lunar Surface Still Offer Value As a Site for Astronomical Observatories?” Space Policy, May 2004 Benford, D., Amato, M., Mather, J., Moseley, S.H.,Jr., and Leisawitz, D., “Mission Concept for the Single Aperture Far-Infrared (SAFIR) Observatory,” Astrophysics and Space Science, 294, 177-212, 2004 Kashlinsky, A.; Arendt, R. G.; Mather, J.; Moseley, S. H., "Tracing the first stars with fluctuations of the cosmic infrared background," Nature, Volume 438, Issue 7064, pp. 45-50 (2005)
| ||