Background
Paczynski, Bohdan was born on February 8, 1940 in Wilno, Poland. Son of Jan and Helena (Milkowska) Paczynski. came to the United States, 1981.
Astronomer astrophysicist university professor
Paczynski, Bohdan was born on February 8, 1940 in Wilno, Poland. Son of Jan and Helena (Milkowska) Paczynski. came to the United States, 1981.
In 1945 his family chose to leave for Poland and settled in Kraków, and then in 1949 in Warsaw. Between 1959 and 1962 he studied astronomy at the University of Warsaw.
At the age of 18, Paczyński published his first scientific article in Acta Astronomica. Two years later he received a doctorate under the tutelage of Stefan Piotrowski and Włodzimierz Zonn. In 1974 he received habilitation and in 1979 became a professor.
In 1981 Paczyński visited the United States, where he gave a series of lectures at Caltech to former interns at his Warsaw-based institute. After the introduction of the Martial Law in Poland he decided to stay abroad. He was the Lyman Spitzer Jr.
Professor of Astrophysics at Princeton University. Paczyński was the initiator of Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment (OGLE, led by Andrzej Udalski of Warsaw University Observatory) and All Sky Automated Survey (ASAS, created together with Grzegorz Pojmański). His new methods of discovering cosmic objects and measuring their mass by using gravitational lenses gained him international recognition, and he is acknowledged for coining the term microlensing.
He was also an early proponent of the idea that gamma-ray bursts are at cosmological distances. His research concentrated on stellar evolution, gravitational lensing and gravitational microlensing, variable stars, gamma-ray bursts, and galactic structure. He was honoured with the title of doctor honoris causa by Wrocław University in Poland (on June 29, 2005) and Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń in Poland (on September 22, 2006).
In January 2006 he was awarded Henry Norris Russell Lectureship of the American Astronomical Society, "for his highly original contributions to a wide variety of fields including advanced stellar evolution, the nature of gamma ray bursts, accretion in binary systems, gravitational lensing, and cosmology. His research has been distinguished by its creativity and breadth, as well as the stimulus it has provided to highly productive observational investigations". He died of brain cancer on April 19, 2007 in Princeton, New Jersey.
Awards
Karl Schwarzschild Medal of Astronomische Gesellschaft (1981)
Eddington Medal (1987)
Heineman Prize (1992)
Henry Draper Medal of the National Academy of Sciences (1997)
Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society (1999)
Bruno Rossi Prize (2000)
Bruce Medal (2002)
Henry Norris Russell Lectureship (2006)
Named after him
Asteroid 11755 Paczynski
Bohdan Paczynski Visitor program, Princeton University. Past scholars include Joachim Wambsganss (2008), Yasushi Suto (2009), Steven Balbus (2010).
Member NAS (foreign associate, Henry Draper medal 1997), Polish Academy Science (correspondent), Deutsche Academie Leopoldina, Royal Astronomical Society (United Kingdom, Eddington medal 1987), International Astronomical Union (invited lecturer 1979).
Married Hanna Adamska, August 25, 1965. Children— Agnieszka, Marcin.
