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Jeremiah P. Ostriker

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Jerry Ostriker
Born
Jeremiah Paul Ostriker

(1937-04-13)April 13, 1937
New York City, U.S.
DiedApril 6, 2025(2025-04-06) (aged 87)
New York City, U.S.
Alma mater
Known for
Spouse
​
(m. 1958)​
Children3
Awards
Scientific career
Institutions
Doctoral advisorSubrahmanyan Chandrasekhar[2]
Doctoral studentsEdmund Bertschinger
Ue-Li Pen
Scott Tremaine
Ellen Zweibel
Websitewww.astro.princeton.edu/people/webpages/jpo/

Jeremiah Paul "Jerry" Ostriker (/ˌoʊˈstraɪkər/ oh-STRY-kər;[3] April 13, 1937 – April 6, 2025) was an American astrophysicist and a professor of astronomy at Columbia University[4][5] and a Charles A. Young Professor Emeritus at Princeton, where he also served as a senior research scholar.[6] Ostriker has also served as a university administrator as Provost of Princeton University.

Education

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He received his B.A. from Harvard and his Ph.D from the University of Chicago.

Career and research

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After earning his Ph.D. at Chicago, he conducted post-doctoral work at the University of Cambridge. From 1971 to 1995, Ostriker was a professor at Princeton, and served as Provost there from 1995 to 2001. From 2001 to 2003, he was appointed as Plumian Professor of Astronomy and Experimental Philosophy at the Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge. He then returned to Princeton as the Charles Young Professor of Astronomy and later served as the Charles A. Young Professor Emeritus.[7] He became a professor of astronomy at Columbia in 2012.

Ostriker was very influential in advancing the theory that most of the mass in the universe is not visible at all, but consists of dark matter.[8][9] His research has also focused on the interstellar medium, galaxy evolution, cosmology and black holes. On June 20, 2013 Ostriker was given the White House Champions of Change Award for his role in initiating the Sloan Digital Sky Survey project, which makes all of its astronomical data sets available publicly on the Internet [10]

Ostriker was also known for the Ostriker–Peebles criterion, relating to the stability of galactic formation.

Publications

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As of April 2021, Ostriker's articles have been cited over 85,910 times and he has an h-index of 130 (130 papers with at least 130 citations) according to the NASA Astrophysics Data System including:

  • "Precision Cosmology? Not Just Yet"[11]
  • Heart of Darkness, Unraveling the Mysteries of the Invisible Universe Princeton University Press (2013)
  • New Light on Dark Matter, Science, 300, pp 1909–1914 (2003) doi:10.1126/Science.1085976
  • The Probability Distribution Function of Light in the Universe: Results from Hydrodynamic Simulations, Astrophysical Journal 597, 1 (2003)
  • Cosmic Mach Number as a Function of Overdensity and Galaxy Age, Astrophysical Journal, 553, 513 (2001)
  • Collisional Dark Matter and the Origin of Massive Black Holes, Physical Review Letters, 84, 5258-5260 (2000).
  • Hydrodynamics of Accretion onto Black Holes, Adv. Space Res., 7, 951-960 (1998). doi:10.1016/S0273-1177(98)00127-6

Awards and honors

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Ostriker won numerous awards and honors including:

Personal life

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Ostriker married noted poet and essayist Alicia Ostriker (née Suskin) in 1958, and they had three children: Rebecca[1], Eve, and Gabriel.[18][7] Like her father, Eve became an astrophysics professor at Princeton University, in 2012, the same year as her father's retirement.[19] Jeremiah and Alicia Ostriker were residents of Princeton, New Jersey.[20]

Ostriker died in Manhattan of renal disease on April 6, 2025, at the age of 87.[18]

References

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  1. ^ a b "Professor Jeremiah Ostriker ForMemRS". London: Royal Society. Archived from the original on 2015-11-17.
  2. ^ Jeremiah P. Ostriker at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
  3. ^ "Jerry Ostriker". YouTube. October 4, 2021. Retrieved 21 July 2023.
  4. ^ Who's who in Frontiers of Science and Technology
  5. ^ Powell, C.S. (1994). "Profile: Jeremiah and Alicia Ostriker – A Marriage of Science and Art". Scientific American. 271 (3): 28–31. doi:10.1038/scientificamerican0994-28.
  6. ^ "Jeremiah P. Ostriker Biography".
  7. ^ a b Jeremiah P. Ostriker biography
  8. ^ de Swart, Jaco (1 August 2024). "Five decades of missing mass". Physics Today. 77: 34–43. doi:10.1063/pt.ozhk.lfeb.
  9. ^ de Swart, J. G.; Bertone, G.; van Dongen, J. (2017). "How dark matter came to matter". Nature Astronomy. 1 (59): 0059. arXiv:1703.00013. Bibcode:2017NatAs...1E..59D. doi:10.1038/s41550-017-0059. S2CID 119092226.
  10. ^ "FACULTY HONOR: Ostriker named White House Champion of Change". Princeton University. June 19, 2013. Retrieved June 21, 2013.
  11. ^ Bridle, Sarah L.; Lahav, Ofer; Ostriker, Jeremiah P.; Steinhardt, Paul J. (2003). "Precision Cosmology? Not Just Yet". Science. 299 (5612): 1532–1533. arXiv:astro-ph/0303180. Bibcode:2003Sci...299.1532B. doi:10.1126/science.1082158. PMID 12624255. S2CID 119368762.
  12. ^ "Jeremiah P. Ostriker".
  13. ^ "Jeremiah Paul Ostriker". 13 September 2023.
  14. ^ "APS Member History".
  15. ^ "J.P. Ostriker". Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. Archived from the original on 13 February 2016. Retrieved 13 February 2016.
  16. ^ "Golden Plate Awardees of the American Academy of Achievement". www.achievement.org. American Academy of Achievement.
  17. ^ "AAS Fellows". AAS. Retrieved 30 September 2020.
  18. ^ a b Overbye, Dennis. "Jeremiah Ostriker, Who Plumbed Dark Forces That Shape Universe, Dies at 87". The New York Times. Retrieved April 7, 2025.
  19. ^ Ostriker, Jeremiah P. (September 2016). "A fortunate half-century". Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics. 54 (1). Annual Reviews: 1–17. Bibcode:2016ARA&A..54....1O. doi:10.1146/annurev-astro-081915-023259.
  20. ^ "Poet Alicia Ostriker to read in Highland Park", Courier News, September 20, 2014. Accessed January 26, 2020. "She still lives in Princeton with her husband of 56 years, astrophysicist Jeremiah Ostriker."
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