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Kevin Krisciunas
Biography
Affiliations
Texas A&M University
Written Biography
Kevin Krisciunas has been a Lecturer at Texas A&M University since 2006. He obtained his BS in Astronomy at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1974, a Master’s Degree in Library Science from the University of Chicago in 1976, and a Master’s Degree in Astronomy (1997) and Ph. D. in Astronomy (2000) from the University of Washington. You might know him from the first episode of the PBS television series The Astronomers, which debuted in 1991. In that episode Kevin gave a tour of the Keck Telescope at Mauna Kea and sang a song containing the names of the 88 constellations. In 1984 he published a German-to-English translation of The History of Astronomy from Herschel to Hertzsprung. In 1988 his book Astronomical Centers of the World was published. More recently (2013, 2016) he published two editions of a volume of interdisciplinary reading called A Guide to Wider Horizons. He has written on the history of nineteenth century Russian astronomy, the star catalogue of Ulugh Beg, and he wrote the biographical memoir on Otto Struve for the National Academy of Sciences. He also compiled a biographical index to the first 108 volumes of Sky and Telescope magazine (http://people.physics.tamu.edu/krisciunas/st.html).
Kevin has worked as a computer programmer and onboard operator for the Kuiper Airborne Observatory (1977 to 1982), and has done software work for the Joint Astronomy Centre in Hilo, Hawaii (1982 to 1996), which was the headquarters for the United Kingdom Infrared Telescope and the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope. He worked at Cerro Tololo Observatory, Las Campanas Observatory, and as a research professor at the University of Notre Dame. Kevin’s research has involved the search for evidence for a central engine in the center of the Milky Way galaxy, the discovery of a new class of pulsating stars (the prototype is ? Doradus), and optical and infrared observations of supernovae. He is the first author or coauthor of 117 refereed scientific publications, and the author or coauthor of many more non-refereed papers.
Candidate Statement
Having been a full member of the AAS and of the Historical Astronomy Division since the inception of the latter in 1979, I would consider it an honor to serve as Vice Chair and subsequently as Chair of HAD. At the previous AAS meeting in Seattle there was a panel discussion on the preservation of historical artifacts at Yerkes, Lick, and Mount Wilson Observatories. I would pursue sources of funding and volunteers to help preserve this important material. I strongly support the continuing efforts to write obituaries of our colleagues who are no longer with us. In this era of video technology, we should start a YouTube channel that brings to life characters important in the history of astronomy. Why not arrange an interview with actress Rachel Weisz, who played Hypatia in the 2009 movie Agora? Woody Sullivan is all tooled up to role play William Herschel for another interview. So many other examples come to mind, such as Ptolemy, Galileo, Edwin Hubble, Harlow Shapley, and others. Some of these could be dialogues or panel discussions like Steve Allen’s program Meeting of Minds, which aired on PBS from 1977 to 1981.
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