Paul L. Schechter (born May 30, 1948) is an American astronomer and observational cosmologist. He is the William A. M. Burden Professor of Astrophysics, Emeritus, at MIT. Schechter received his bachelor's degree from

Cornell Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...

in 1968, and his Ph.D. degree from Caltech in 1975. He held postdoctoral positions at the Institute for Advanced Study and the University of Arizona, then went to

Harvard 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 ...

as an assistant professor. He moved to his present position at MIT in 1988. Schechter was elected to the U.S.

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 2003. Schechter is known for his work establishing what is now known as the Schechter luminosity function for galaxies, and for work with William Press on what is now termed the Press–Schechter formalism. He also developed accurate methods for measuring velocity dispersions of galaxies, analyzed the Virgocentric infall, and performed precise analyses of gravitational lenses.U.S. National Academy of Sciences election citation at

References

Living people Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences 1948 births 20th-century American Jews California Institute of Technology alumni Massachusetts Institute of Technology School of Science faculty Cornell University alumni Institute for Advanced Study visiting scholars University of Arizona people Harvard University faculty Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 21st-century American Jews {{US-astronomer-stub