George Henry Rieke (born January 5, 1943), a noted American infrared astronomer, is former Deputy Director of the

Steward Observatory Steward Observatory is the research arm of the Department of Astronomy at the University of Arizona (UArizona). Its offices are located on the UArizona campus in Tucson, Arizona (US). Established in 1916, the first telescope and building were f ...

and Regents Professor of Astronomy and Planetary Sciences at the

University of Arizona The University of Arizona (Arizona, U of A, UArizona, or UA) is a public land-grant research university in Tucson, Arizona. Founded in 1885 by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, it was the first university in the Arizona Territory. T ...

in Tucson. He led the experiment design and development team for the Multiband Imaging Photometer for Spitzer (MIPS) instrument on NASA's infrared

Spitzer Space Telescope The Spitzer Space Telescope, formerly the Space Infrared Telescope Facility (SIRTF), was an infrared space telescope launched in 2003. Operations ended on 30 January 2020. Spitzer was the third space telescope dedicated to infrared astronomy, f ...

, and currently chairs the science team of the Mid-Infrared Instrument for the

James Webb Space Telescope The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is a space telescope which conducts infrared astronomy. As the largest optical telescope in space, its high resolution and sensitivity allow it to view objects too old, distant, or faint for the Hubble Spa ...

Career and research

Rieke completed his bachelor's degree in physics at

Oberlin College Oberlin College is a Private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college and conservatory of music in Oberlin, Ohio. It is the oldest Mixed-sex education, coeducational liberal arts college in the United S ...

. He completed his master's and PhD degrees in physics at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

in 1969. Among other contributions, Rieke and his group discovered ultraluminous infrared galaxies, the starburst phenomenon, studies of the

galactic center The Galactic Center or Galactic Centre is the rotational center, the barycenter, of the Milky Way galaxy. Its central massive object is a supermassive black hole of about 4 million solar masses, which is called Sagittarius A*, a compact rad ...

as a prototypical

active galactic nucleus An active galactic nucleus (AGN) is a compact region at the center of a galaxy that has a much-higher-than-normal luminosity over at least some portion of the electromagnetic spectrum with characteristics indicating that the luminosity is not pr ...

, the physical origin of the infrared emission of active galactic nuclei, planetary

debris disks Debris (, ) is rubble, wreckage, ruins, litter and discarded garbage/refuse/trash, scattered remains of something destroyed, or, as in geology, large rock fragments left by a melting glacier, etc. Depending on context, ''debris'' can refer to ...

, as well as Solar System astronomy at infrared wavelengths. Rieke helped develop the first infrared-optimized telescope and constructed a series of state-of-the-art focal plane instruments. Rieke was involved with the Spacelab 2 infrared telescope, a pioneering infrared space mission. He led the MIPS instrument team for Spitzer. The highly sensitive MIPS camera was built at

Ball Aerospace Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. is an American manufacturer of spacecraft, components and instruments for national defense, civil space and commercial space applications. The company is a wholly owned subsidiary of Ball Corporation (NYSE: BAL ...

under Rieke's leadership. Also, Rieke is the lead scientist on a team to produce a

Mid-Infrared Instrument MIRI, or Mid-Infrared Instrument, is an instrument on the James Webb Space Telescope. MIRI is a camera and a spectrograph that observes mid to long infrared radiation from 5 to 28 microns. It also has coronagraphs, especially for observing ex ...

(MIRI) for the James Webb Space Telescope.

Honors and awards

Rieke was elected as a fellow of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...

in mathematics and physics category on May 2, 2003. He was elected to the

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. He was cited for his contributions as an infrared observer and instrumentalist. He was awarded a

Sloan Research Fellowship The Sloan Research Fellowships are awarded annually by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation since 1955 to "provide support and recognition to early-career scientists and scholars". This program is one of the oldest of its kind in the United States. ...

in 1976, a Vikram Sarabhai Professorship in 1986, a NASA Public Service Group Achievement Award in 1986, a NASA Public Service Medal in 2005, and the Koffler Prize for creative scholarship at the University of Arizona in 2006. He was elected a Legacy Fellow of the

American Astronomical Society The American Astronomical Society (AAS, sometimes spoken as "double-A-S") is an American society of professional astronomers and other interested individuals, headquartered in Washington, DC. The primary objective of the AAS is to promote the adv ...

in 2020.

Personal life

George Rieke is the son of astronomer and computational chemist

Carol Jane Anger Rieke Carol Jane Anger Rieke (January 17, 1908 – December 31, 1999) was an American astronomer, computational chemist, and mathematics educator. She co-authored papers with Nobel Prize laureate Robert S. Mulliken. Early life and education Carol ...

. He is married to the infrared astronomer

Marcia J. Rieke Marcia Jean Rieke ( ) is an American astronomer. She is a Regents' Professor of Astronomy and associate department head at the University of Arizona. Rieke is the Principal Investigator on the near-infrared camera (NIRCam) for the James Webb Spa ...

References

Books

* ''Detection of Light: from the Ultraviolet to the Submillimeter'', George Rieke, Cambridge University Press, 1994; second edition 2002. * ''The Last of the Great Observatories: Spitzer and the Era of Faster, Better, Cheaper at NASA'', George H. Rieke, University of Arizona Press, 2006. Received starred review from Publishedrs Weekly. * ''Measuring the Universe: A Multiwavelength Perspective,'' George H. Rieke, Cambridge University Press, 2012. Winner of the Chambliss Award for astronomical textbook writing. {{DEFAULTSORT:Rieke, George H. 1943 births Living people Harvard University alumni American astronomers Oberlin College alumni Fellows of the American Astronomical Society