Edward L. (Ned) Wright (born August 25, 1947 in
Washington, D.C.) is an American
astrophysicist and
cosmologist, well known for his achievements in the
COBE,
WISE WISE may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media
* WISE (AM), a radio station licensed to Asheville, North Carolina
*WISE-FM, a radio station licensed to Wise, Virginia
* WISE-TV, a television station licensed to Fort Wayne, Indiana
Education
* ...
, and
WMAP projects and as a strong
Big Bang
The Big Bang event is a physical theory that describes how the universe expanded from an initial state of high density and temperature. Various cosmological models of the Big Bang explain the evolution of the observable universe from the ...
proponent in web tutorials on
cosmology and
theory of relativity.
Wright received his ABscl (Physics in 1969) and
PhD PHD or PhD may refer to:
* Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification
Entertainment
* '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series
* ''Piled Higher and Deeper'', a web comic
* Ph.D. (band), a 1980s British group
** Ph.D. (Ph.D. albu ...
(Astronomy in 1976) degrees in high-altitude rocket measurement of cosmic microwave background radiation from
Harvard University, where he was a
junior fellow. After teaching as a tenured associate professor in the
MIT Physics Department for a while, Wright has been a professor at
UCLA since 1981.
Wright takes an interest in
infrared astronomy and cosmology. He has studied fractal dust grains which are able to absorb and emit efficiently at millimeter wavelengths, and other aspects that may be important factors in drawing secrets from the
cosmic microwave background. As an interdisciplinary scientist on the Space InfraRed Telescope Facility (
SIRTF) Science Working Group, Wright has worked on the SIRTF project (renamed the Spitzer Space Telescope) since 1976. He was an active member of the teams working on the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) since 1978. He is the principal investigator of the Wide field Infrared Survey Explorer (
WISE WISE may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media
* WISE (AM), a radio station licensed to Asheville, North Carolina
*WISE-FM, a radio station licensed to Wise, Virginia
* WISE-TV, a television station licensed to Fort Wayne, Indiana
Education
* ...
) project. Wright is also a member of the current science team on the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (
WMAP), which was launched in June 2001. WMAP is a mission to follow up the COBE discovery of early fluctuations in the developing
Universe.
From 1994 to 1998, he served as a science editor of ''
The Astrophysical Journal''.
Honors and awards
*
NASA Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal for his work on COBE, in 1992.
* Named the
CSEOL Distinguished Scientist of the Year, in 1995.
* Elected to the US
National Academy of Sciences
The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...
in 2011.
*
Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics, December 2017
References
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Wright, Edward L. (Ned)
20th-century American astronomers
21st-century American physicists
American cosmologists
Harvard College alumni
Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni
Massachusetts Institute of Technology School of Science faculty
University of California, Los Angeles faculty
Living people
1947 births
Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences