'Jeremiah (Jerry) Paul Ostriker' (b.
1937) is a distinguished
astrophysicist at
Princeton University. He received his B.A. from
Harvard, his Ph.D at the
University of Chicago, and then carried out post-doctoral work at Cambridge. From
1971 to
1995, Ostriker was a professor at
Princeton, and served as
Provost there from
1995 to
2001.
From 2001 to 2003, he was appointed as
Plumian Professorship of Astronomy and Experimental Philosophy at Cambridge. He has since returned to Princeton.
Ostriker has been very influential in advancing the theory that most of the
mass in the
universe is not visible at all, but consists of
dark matter. Ostriker's research has also focused on the
interstellar medium.
He married noted poet and essayist
Alicia Ostriker in
1959.
Recent publications
★ ''New Light on Dark Matter'', Science, 300, pp 1909-1914 (2003)
★ ''The Probability Distribution Function of Light in the Universe: Results from Hydrodynamic Simulations'', Astrophysical Journal 597, 1 (2003)
★ ''Cosmic Mach Number as a Function of Overdensity and Galaxy Age'', Astrophysical Journal, 553, 513 (2001)
★ ''Collisional Dark Matter and the Origin of Massive Black Holes'', Physical Review Letters, 84, 5258-5260 (2000).
★ ''Hydrodynamics of Accretion onto Black Holes'', Adv. Space Res., 7, 951-960 (1998).
Awards
★
Helen B. Warner Prize for Astronomy of the
American Astronomical Society (AAS) (1972)
★
Henry Norris Russell Lectureship of the AAS (1980)
★
National Medal of Science by U.S. President
Bill Clinton (2000)
★
Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society (2004)