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CXC Biographies: Dr. Alex Filippenko
Alex Filippenko received his B.A. in Physics (1979) from UC Santa Barbara, and his Ph.D. in Astronomy (1984) from Caltech, subsequently becoming a Miller Fellow at UC Berkeley. In 1986 he joined the faculty at UC Berkeley, where he has remained through the present time. An observational astronomer who makes frequent use of the Hubble Space Telescope and the Keck 10-meter telescopes, his primary areas of research are exploding stars, active galaxies, black holes, gamma-ray bursts, and the expansion of the Universe; he has also spearheaded efforts to develop robotic telescopes. His research accomplishments, documented in over 430 published articles, have been recognized by several major awards including a Guggenheim Fellowship, and he is one of the world's most highly cited astronomers. He is a prominent member of the High-Redshift Supernova Search Team, whose co-discovery of the acceleration of the Universe was voted the top scientific breakthrough of 1998 by the editors of Science magazine.
Filippenko is Past President of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific and has been a Councilor of the American Astronomical Society. A dedicated and enthusiastic instructor, he has won the top teaching awards at UC Berkeley; also, in 1995, 2001, and 2003 he was voted the "Best Professor" on campus in informal student polls. He has appeared in several TV documentaries, most recently Nova's "Runaway Universe." In 1998 and 2003 he produced 40-lecture and 16-lecture (respectively) video courses on introductory astronomy with The Teaching Company. He coauthored an introductory astronomy textbook in 2001 and 2004 (second edition). Besides being an avid tennis player and hiker, he enjoys world travel and is addicted to total solar eclipses, having seen 7 of them.
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