Alan Dressler

{{Short description|American astronomer (born 1948)}}

{{Infobox scientist

| name = Alan Michael Dressler

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| birth_date = {{birth date |1948|03|23}}

| birth_place = Cincinnati, Ohio

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| fields = Extragalactic astronomy, cosmology

| workplaces = Carnegie Institution for Science

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| education = PhD in astronomy (1976)

| alma_mater = University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Santa Cruz

| thesis_title = A comprehensive study of twelve very rich clusters of galaxies{{cite web | title=Alan Michael Dressler | website=AstroGen | url=https://astrogen.aas.org/front/searchdetails.php?agnumber=8403 | access-date=2024-08-05 }}

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| thesis_year = 1976

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| awards = Newton Lacy Pierce Prize in Astronomy
NASA Public Service Medal
Carl Sagan Memorial Award

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Alan Michael Dressler (born 23 March 1948) is an American astronomer at the Carnegie Institution for Science of Washington, D.C. Among his works is the popularization Voyage To The Great Attractor: Exploring Intergalactic Space.Dressler, Alan Michael (1994) Voyage To The Great Attractor: Exploring Intergalactic Space Knopf, New York, {{ISBN|0-394-58899-1}}

Dressler was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, graduated from Walnut Hills High School{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kgnS65gAbJoC&q=cincinnati+workhouse&pg=PA54 | title=Cincinnati Landmarks | publisher=Arcadia Publishing | date=Oct 29, 2012 | accessdate=2013-05-19 | author=Rolfes, Steven | pages=54| isbn=9780738593951 }} in 1966, and received his bachelor's degree in physics in 1970 from the University of California, Berkeley and his doctorate in astronomy in 1976 from the University of California, Santa Cruz. His primary professional interests lie in cosmology, birth and evolution of galaxies, astronomical instrumentation, and extragalactic astronomy.

From 1993 to 1995 Dressler chaired the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) committee "HST & Beyond: Exploration and the Search for Origins" that provided NASA with the document "A Vision for Ultraviolet-Optical-Infrared Space Astronomy".{{cite journal|author=Dressler, A.|title=Recommendations of the AURA "HST and Beyond" Committee|journal=American Astronomical Society Meeting Abstracts|volume=187|date=December 1995|pages=93.02|bibcode=1995AAS...187.9302D |url=https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1995AAS...187.9302D/abstract}}{{cite book|author="HST and Beyond" Committee, chaired by Alan Dressler|title=A Vision for Ultraviolet-Optical-Infrared Space Astronomy|publisher=Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy|date=May 15, 1996|location=Washington, D.C.|url=https://www.stsci.edu/stsci/org/hst-and-beyond-report.pdf}} He was a member of the Nuker Team and the Morphs collaboration which studied the evolution of spiral galaxies using the Magellan Telescopes and the Hubble Space Telescope.[http://star-www.dur.ac.uk/~irs/morphs.html "The Morphs"] Durham University, United Kingdom Dressler was chairman of the Origins Subcommittee (OS) for NASA from 2000 to 2003,[http://spacescience.nasa.gov/adv/letters/OS0107.htm "Letter to Origins Director Dr. Anne Kinney from Dr. Alan Dressler, Chair of OS"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110721053051/http://spacescience.nasa.gov/adv/letters/OS0107.htm |date=2011-07-21 }} Origins Subcommittee (OS) Meeting, NASA Headquarters, July 11–13, 2001 but declined membership in the Review of Near-Earth Object Surveys and Hazard Mitigation Strategies, Survey/Detection Panel.[http://www8.nationalacademies.org/cp/CommitteeView.aspx?key=49021 "Committee Membership Information"] United States National Academy of Sciences Dressler is currently working on the Inamori Magellan Areal Camera and Spectrograph (IMACS) Cluster Building Survey which studies the evolution of stellar structures and populations in distant galaxy clusters, which means the events observed took place four to seven billion years ago. He is also a member of the Terrestrial Planet Finder Coronograph Science and technology definition team.[http://www.physics.ucsb.edu/newsevents/lcolectures/archive.htm "An Evening with Dr. Alan Dressler"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110206123630/http://www.physics.ucsb.edu/newsevents/lcolectures/archive.htm |date=2011-02-06 }} Las Cumbres Observatory Lectures