George B. Field
George B. Field is an American astrophysicist.Education and career
Field 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. In 1973 he became the founding director of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, an innovative organizational structure that unified the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory and the Harvard College Observatory 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 Science decadal study that recommended priorities for U.S. astronomical research.
Among his doctoral students were Eric G. Blackman, Sean M. Carroll, Carl E. Heiles, and Christopher McKee.Awards
