Marshal Henry Wrubel was a child prodigy in music, an astrophysicist, and the first director of Indiana University"s Research Computing Center.
Education
In 1944 he graduated from Juilliard and also graduated from City University of New York with a Bachelor of Arts in physics. After completing his military service Wrubel entered in 1946 the astrophysics doctoral program of the University of Chicago and received in 1949 his Doctor of Philosophy under Chandrasekhar.
Career
At age 11 Marshal Wrubel entered the Juilliard School to study piano. After graduation he served in the United States Army for two years and worked at the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory. He spent the 1949-1950 academic year at Princeton University as a postdoc on a National Research Council Fellowship.
According to Paul Routly, Wrubel
"was a brilliant pianist.
In fact he had been trained at the Juilliard for years as a pianist and he was torn at one point in his career as to whether he was going to become a professional astronomer or a concert pianist. So he finally decided to before a professional astronomer but he always maintained a wonderful interest in music
In fact I think that"s one reason why he went to Indiana because of the music department."
At Indiana University he became in 1950 an assistant professor and in 1966 a full professor of astronomy. Wrubel was the director of Indiana University"s Research Computing Center from 1955 to 1958.
The Center was renamed in his honor in 1973.
The asteroid 1765 Wrubel is named in his honor.