Karl Glazebrook, an Anglo-Australian astronomer, is known for his work on galaxy formation, for playing a key role in developing the nod and shuffle technique for doing spectroscopy with large telescopes, and for originating the Perl Data Language (PDL). In 2008, he received the Maria & Eric Muhlmann Award, for the development of innovative research instruments and techniques, from the Astronomical Society of the Pacific[1].
Glazebrook was born in 1965 in the United Kingdom, and educated at the University of Cambridge and the University of Edinburgh (PhD 1992). He held post-doctoral appointments at the University of Durham and University of Cambridge before moving to the Anglo-Australian Observatory, where he played a central role in supporting the 2dF galaxy survey as its instrument scientist. He moved to Johns Hopkins University in 2000 where he was Professor of Astronomy until 2006, at which time he became Professor of Astronomy at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, Australia.[2] His work has been cited over 10,000 times in the literature of astronomy.
Glazebrook is co-principal investigator of the Gemini Deep Deep Survey, which (along with a number of other studies) determined in 2004 that massive galaxies formed surprisingly early in the distant Universe. As a whimsical side-project Glazebrook also determined that the bulk-averaged color of the Universe is Cosmic latte. Both pieces of work received wide publicity in the international press. The bulk-averaged color earned some additional international publicity because a software bug had initially suggeste a pale turquoise instead of the bland beige.[3] He is also well known for his pioneering work in developing the baryon oscillation technique to use the distribution of galaxies as a probe of dark energy.
Asteroid 10099 Glazebrook was named in his honor.
Glazebrook also developed the open-source Perl Data Language, a perl-based alternative to the commercial IDL.