Emeritus Professor Rodger Thompson named AAS Fellow for his groundbreaking contributions to the field

This week, the American Astronomical Society (AAS), named Steward Observatory’s Rodger Thompson as AAS Fellow—an honor bestowed on less than 0.5% of AAS’s membership each year. 

Dr. Thompson, Professor Emeritus in the Department of Astronomy and Astronomer Emeritus in Steward Observatory, is being honored for his groundbreaking contributions to near-infrared astronomy and Fourier Transform spectroscopy leading to better understanding of stellar nucleosynthesis, galactic formation, and the physics of active galactic nuclei. AAS also celebrates his seminal work on the proton-to-electron mass ratio (μ) and its links to molecular physics, fundamental cosmology, and particle physics.

Professor Thompson's primary area of research is the theory and measurement of fundamental constants such as the proton to electron mass ratio and the fine structure constant. He uses the measured constraints on the time variation of the constants to establish limits on the variation of basic physics parameters such as the Quantum Chromodynamic Scale, the Higgs Vacuum Expectation Value and the Yukawa couplings. A new area of research is using rolling scalar field beta functions to systematically characterize the wide range of alternative cosmologies and to establish the bounds on their parameter space imposed by the stability of the fundamental constants. This work also earned him a prestigious American Physical Society (APS) Fellowship in 2015.

Of his achievements, Professor Thompson says: "The successes of many of the members of the Department of Astronomy and Steward Observatory have been made possible by the Department’s and Observatory’s culture of freedom to choose the topics we work on. This is supported by a wonderful staff dedicated that make it possible to do our chosen research.  We could not have done it without you."

Thompson is the Principal Investigator for the Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer, NICMOS, on the Hubble Space Telescope and has been active in using NICMOS on HST to do high redshift cosmology. He has measured the star formation history of the universe to redshift 6 and has determined the primary sources of the near infrared background and residual fluctuations. 

Thompson is one of only 24 members being honored as a AAS Fellow this year, in recognition of extraordinary achievement and service. This year’s recipients are being honored for original research and publications, innovative contributions to astronomical techniques or instrumentation, significant contributions to education and public outreach, and noteworthy service to astronomy and to the Society itself. " Buell Jannuzi, Head of the Department of Astronomy and Director of Steward Observatory, says: “Rodger’s great accomplishments across the breadth of his interests in astrophysics make him well deserving of the recognition AAS is bringing to his work by naming him a Fellow of the AAS.”