George B. Field

Field was born in Providence, Rhode Island.[1] His father Winthrop Brooks Field and mother Pauline Woodworth Field were Harvard and Radcliffe graduates, respectively.[1] He became interested in astronomy at an early age, but at the urging of his father he studied chemical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Disliking engineering, he later switched to astrophysics. After MIT, he attended the graduate school at Princeton University.

Field worked on plasma oscillations and later became interested in cosmology.[1] In 1973, he became the founding director of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, an innovative organizational structure that unified the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (a government agency) and the Harvard College Observatory (a private institution) under a single management. Field served as Director until 1982, when he was succeeded by Irwin I. Shapiro.

In the early 1980s, Field chaired an influential National Academy of Sciences decadal study that recommended priorities for US astronomical research.[2]

Among his doctoral students were Eric G. Blackman, Sean M. Carroll, Carl E. Heiles, and Christopher McKee.

• 1978 Karl Schwarzschild Medal[3]
• 2014 Henry Norris Russell Lectureship

• George B. Field at Harvard.edu