Peter R. McCullough
{{Short description|American astronomer (born 1964)}}
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{{Infobox scientist
| image = Peter_R._McCullough.jpg
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| caption = McCullough {{circa|2008}}
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| name = Peter R. McCullough
| birth_date = {{Birth date and age|1964|8|20|mf=y}}
| birth_place = Providence, Rhode Island, U.S.
| field = Astronomy
| alma_mater = University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, University of California, Berkeley
| work_institution = Johns Hopkins University, Space Telescope Science Institute
| known_for = Discovering transiting extrasolar planets
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| doctoral_advisor = Carl Heiles
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| relatives = David McCullough
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Peter R. McCullough ({{IPAc-en|m|ə|ˈ|k|ʌ|l|ə}}; born August 20, 1964) is an American astronomer, founder of the XO Project and discoverer of extrasolar transiting planets, such as XO-1b.{{Cite web | url=https://exoplanet.eu/catalog/xo_1_b--329/ | work=Extrasolar Planets Encyclopaedia |title = The Extrasolar Planet Encyclopaedia — XO-1 B}}{{cite web|title=Amateurs Help Discover Transiting Exoplanet|url=http://www.skyandtelescope.com/news/3077381.html|date=2006-05-23|access-date=2010-11-05|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120406095629/http://www.skyandtelescope.com/news/3077381.html|archive-date=2012-04-06|url-status=dead}} Soon after the U.S. declassification of the laser beacon adaptive optics technique in 1991, he identified dusty disks around newborn stars, later referred to as proplyds, in observations of the Orion Nebula made with the Starfire Optical Range.{{Cite book |arxiv = 0807.0634|doi = 10.1117/12.789766|chapter = LGS AO science impact: Present and future perspectives|title = Adaptive Optics Systems|volume = 7015|pages = 701508|year = 2008|last1 = Liu|first1 = Michael C.|s2cid = 119254258|editor1-first = Norbert|editor1-last = Hubin|editor2-first = Claire E|editor2-last = Max|editor3-first = Peter L|editor3-last = Wizinowich}} Astronomers John Gaustad, McCullough, and David Van Buren with engineer Wayne Rosing mapped the entire southern sky in the hydrogen alpha transition with sufficient sensitivity for decontamination of the Milky Way from the cosmic microwave background.{{Cite journal |doi = 10.1086/323969|title = A Robotic Wide‐Angle Hα Survey of the Southern Sky|journal = Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific|volume = 113|issue = 789|pages = 1326–1348|year = 2001|last1 = Gaustad|first1 = John E.|last2 = McCullough|first2 = Peter R.|last3 = Rosing|first3 = Wayne|last4 = Van Buren|first4 = Dave|bibcode = 2001PASP..113.1326G|arxiv = astro-ph/0108518|s2cid = 17231573}}{{Cite web | url=http://amundsen.swarthmore.edu/ |title = SHASSA}} McCullough's modification to the Stromgren sphere model often produces more realistic results than the original.{{citation needed|date=October 2015}}
Biography
=Education=
McCullough attended public primary school in Massachusetts and Athens Drive High School in North Carolina. In summers between his undergraduate years, he interned at the Wind River National Outdoor Leadership School, the Palo Alto CA police department, Weyerhauser, and the National Radio Astronomy Observatory's Very Large Array. McCullough received a Bachelor of Science in physics in 1986 from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. At the University of California, Berkeley, he earned a PhD in astrophysics in 1993.{{cite web |url=http://badgrads.berkeley.edu/doku.php?id=alumni |title=UC Berkeley Ph.D.s in Astronomy and Astrophysics |access-date=2010-10-26}}
=Employment=
McCullough was a Hubble postdoctoral fellow, and then an assistant professor in the Astronomy Department of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.{{Cite web | url=http://courses.illinois.edu/cis/programs/urbana/1999/lasfaculty.html |title = Course Explorer}} Since 2002 he has been employed by the Space Telescope Science Institute.{{Cite web | url=http://heritage.stsci.edu/2006/13/bio/bio_primary.html | title=Hubble Heritage}} He also works on the science team of the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite. In 2009-2010 he was a visiting scientist at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory and the Institut d'astrophysique de Paris.{{Cite web | url=http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/events/colloquia/spring10.html | title=CfA Colloquium Schedule}}{{Cite web |url=http://www.iap.fr/ActivitesScientifiques/SeminairesEtColloques/SeminairesIAP/2010/McCullough.html |title=Archived copy |access-date=2010-11-05 |archive-date=2016-06-23 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160623153313/http://www.iap.fr/ActivitesScientifiques/SeminairesEtColloques/SeminairesIAP/2010/McCullough.html |url-status=dead }}
Awards and fellowships
McCullough has received numerous awards throughout his career. His undergraduate education was supported entirely by merit scholarships.{{cite web |title=Morehead-Cain, the "oldest, most prestigious merit scholarship program in the United States" |url=http://www.moreheadcain.org}}{{cite web |title=List of Morehead-Cain Scholars |url=http://www.m-c-network.org/search/}} NASA granted him a graduate student researcher award and a Hubble postdoctoral fellowship in 1993.{{cite web | url=http://www.stsci.edu/institute/smo/fellowships/hubble/fellows-list/ | archive-url=https://wayback.archive-it.org/all/20170220160434/http://www.stsci.edu/institute/smo/fellowships/hubble/fellows-list/ | url-status=dead | archive-date=February 20, 2017 | title=Listing of all Hubble Fellows 1990-2016 | access-date=June 12, 2016 }} He was a recipient of the Sloan Fellowship.{{cite web|title=List of Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellows|url=http://www.sloan.org/fellowships/list|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110519162228/http://www.sloan.org/fellowships/list|archive-date=2011-05-19}} In recognition of his university teaching and research, the U.S. National Science Foundation granted him a CAREER award{{cite web |title=NSF CAREER award: The Faint Interstellar Medium and Stardial |url=https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward.do?AwardNumber=9874670}} and the Research Corporation selected him as a Cottrell Scholar.{{cite web |title=List of Cottrell Scholars |url=http://www.rescorp.org/gdresources/downloads/past.csa.pdf }}{{dead link|date=March 2018 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}
See also
References
{{Reflist}}
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Category:Discoverers of exoplanets
Category:Athens Drive High School alumni
Category:University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill alumni