Benjamin Zuckerman

Place: New York City

Born: 1943

Biography:

Benjamin Zuckerman is an astrophysicist and an emeritus professor in the Department of Physics & Astronomy at UCLA. He was born on August 16, 1943 in New York City, New York, United States. Zuckerman completed two degrees in 1963, one in Physics and one in Aeronautic & Astronautics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He finished his PhD thesis in Astronomy in 1968 at Harvard University. Since 1965, Zuckerman has published well over 200 refereed papers in journals such as Astrophysical Journal, Nature, Astronomy & Astrophysics and Science, of which he was first author for close to 100. He also produced a number of review papers in Annual review of astronomy and astrophysics. In 2001, he participated in the Encyclopedia of Astronomy and Astrophysics. Zuckerman was co-author of a 2008 paper reporting first directly imaged multiplanetary system (arguably, the first directly imaged planets) around HR 8799 and a 2010 paper discovering a fourth imaged planet in the system: HR 8799 e. Outreach work includes co-editing a book called Extraterrestrials, Where Are They with Michael Hart in 1982 and co-authoring the book The Alchemy of Air: A Jewish Genius, a Powerful Empire, and the Birth of the Industrial Revolution in 2006.