Joel Primack

{{Short description|Director of University of California AstroComputing Center}}

{{Infobox writer

| name = Joel R. Primack

| image =

| birth_date = {{Birth date and age|1945|7|14}}

| birth_name = Joel R. Primack

| birth_place = Santa Barbara, California, U.S.

| occupation = Physicist

| period = UCSC: 1973–present

UC-HiPACC: 2010-present

| education = Princeton University (BA)

Stanford University (PhD)

| awards = Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Senior Award, 1997

| website = {{URL|http://scipp.ucsc.edu/personnel/profiles/primack.html}}

| spouse = Nancy Ellen Abrams

| children = 1 daughter

}}

Joel R. Primack (born July 14, 1945) is an American physicist. He is a professor of physics and astrophysics at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and is a member of the Santa Cruz Institute for Particle Physics.{{cite web |title=Joel R. Primack |url=https://primack.sites.ucsc.edu/ |accessdate=29 April 2024}}{{cite web|url=http://hipacc.ucsc.edu/About.html|title=Welcome from the Director|accessdate=29 January 2013}}

Primack received his A.B. from Princeton University in 1966 and his Ph.D. from Stanford University in 1970. His fields of study are relativistic quantum field theory, cosmology, and particle astrophysics. He is also involved in supercomputer simulations of dark matter models. He directs the University of California High-Performance AstroComputing Center (UC-HiPACC). Primack is best known for his co-authorship with George Blumenthal, Sandra Moore Faber, and Martin Rees of the theory of cold dark matter (CDM) in 1984.{{cite journal|last1=Blumenthal|display-authors=etal|title=Formation of galaxies and large-scale structure with cold dark matter|journal=Nature|date=11 Oct 1984|volume=311|issue=5986|pages=517–525|doi=10.1038/311517a0|bibcode=1984Natur.311..517B|osti=1447148|s2cid=4324282|url=https://www.slac.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/getdoc/slac-pub-3307.pdf}}Joel R. Primack, "Dark Matter, Galaxies, and Large Scale Structure in the Universe", SLAC-PUB-3387 (July 1984), in Proceedings of the International School of Physics XCII 1987 He co-authored two books with Nancy Abrams, The View from the Center of the Universe (2006)The View from the Center of the Universe. Joel R. Primack and Nancy Ellen Abrams, Riverhead Books, 2007 ({{ISBN|978-1594482557}}). and The New Universe and the Human Future (2011).The New Universe and the Human Future - The Terry Lectures. Joel R. Primack and Nancy Ellen Abrams, Yale

University Press, 2012 ({{ISBN|978-0300181241}}). He played main roles in starting the Congressional Science and Technology Fellowship program, the Forum on Physics and Society of the American Physical Society, and the Science and Human Rights program of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1970-1973.{{cite web|url=http://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1032&context=phy_fac|title=History of the Forum on Physics and Society|author=David Hafemeiste|publisher=Forum on Physics and Society, Vol 28, p 3-5}} ; [https://www.aps.org/units/fps/history.cfm Link in APS website] He is a fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.