Wallace L. W. Sargent
| Wal Sargent | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Wallace Leslie William Sargent February 15, 1935 |
| Died | October 29, 2012 (aged 77) |
| Institutions | California Institute of Technology[1] |
| Alma mater | University of Manchester (PhD) |
| Doctoral advisor | Franz Daniel Kahn[2][3] |
| Doctoral students | |
| Notable awards | FRS (1981)[4] |
| Spouse | Anneila Sargent (m. 1964) |
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Website www | |
Wallace Leslie William Sargent FRS[4] (February 15, 1935 – October 29, 2012) was a British-born American astronomer[5] and the Ira S. Bowen Professor of Astronomy at California Institute of Technology.[1]
Education
Sargent was born in Elsham, North Lincolnshire, the son of a gardener and a housecleaner, and grew up in Winterton, Lincolnshire.[6] Sargent was the first person in his family to attend high school, and the first student from his high school to ever attend college.[7] He received his bachelor's degree from the University of Manchester in 1956, and his Ph.D. in 1959 from the same institution.[4]
Career and research
Sargent spent the majority of his career at California Institute of Technology (Caltech),[1] excepting an absence of four years during which he claims to have had to go back to England to find himself a wife, Anneila Sargent.
Sargent was known for his studies of quasar absorption lines.
He supervised the theses of a number of students while at Caltech, including John Huchra,[2] Edwin Turner, Charles C. Steidel, and Alex Filippenko.
He was director of the Palomar Observatory from 1997 to 2000.
Awards and Honors
- Helen B. Warner Prize for Astronomy (1969)
- Dannie Heineman Prize for Astrophysics (1991)
- Bruce Medal (1994)
- Henry Norris Russell Lectureship (2001)
- Elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1981[4]
- The Asteroid 11758 Sargent is named in his honor
Personal life
Sargent was married to fellow Caltech astronomer Anneila Sargent from 1964 until his death. Although he became a U.S. citizen, he was born in Elsham, England.[1]
References
- 1 2 3 4 "Wallace Sargent's Homepage". Caltech. Archived from the original on 2015-04-28.
- 1 2 3 Wallace L. W. Sargent at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
- ↑ Dyson, J. E.; Lynden Bell, D. (1999). "Franz Daniel Kahn. 13 May 1926 -- 8 February 1998: Elected F.R.S. 1993". Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society 45: 255. doi:10.1098/rsbm.1999.0017.
- 1 2 3 4 Lynden-Bell, Donald (2015). "Wallace Leslie William Sargent. 15 February 1935 — 29 October 2012". Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society (Royal Society publishing) 61. doi:10.1098/rsbm.2015.0018. ISSN 0080-4606.
- ↑ 10/30/2012. "Caltech Mourns the Passing of Wallace L. W. Sargent | Caltech". Caltech.edu. Retrieved 2012-10-31.
- ↑ http://articles.latimes.com/2012/nov/10/local/la-me-wallace-sargent-20121110
- ↑ http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1086/669931
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