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Thomas S. StatlerBiography
Statler is an expert in the structure and evolution of galaxies and the dynamics of the Solar System. His research interests range from the spins of asteroids the size of office buildings to the hot interstellar plasma in galaxies some twenty orders of magnitude larger. He earned his A.B. from the University of California at Berkeley in 1982, and his Ph.D. from Princeton University in 1986. As a postdoc he was a Miller Fellow at Berkeley, and then held positions at the University of Colorado and the University of North Carolina before joining Ohio University in 1995 to create the astrophysics program. He was founding director of the Astrophysical Institute at Ohio from 2004 to 2010. An accomplished science communicator, Statler wrote a regular column on astronomy for the Columbus Dispatch newspaper from 2005 to 2010, and has conducted science outreach events for the U.S. Department of State and the Washington Post. He has maintained a keen interest in the intersection of science and art, both as a composer and performer of experimental music and as a collaborator on two astronomy-themed exhibits. He served as Chair and Vice Chair of the American Astronomical Society's Division on Dynamical Astronomy. Since 2009 he has been serving the U.S. scientific community at NSF, leading proposal reviews for the Planetary and Extragalactic Astronomy programs, managing major strategic planning for U.S. ground-based astronomy, and helping to spearhead pilot projects in Big Data and Open Access publishing. |
Thomas S. Statler is a theoretical and observational astrophysicist and planetary scientist, currently serving as Program Director in the Division of Astronomical Sciences at the National Science Foundation, on a rotation from Ohio University, where he is Professor of Physics and Astronomy.
