Jeremiah P. Ostriker

Jeremiah Paul Ostriker (Template:IPAc-en Template:Respell;<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> April 13, 1937 – April 6, 2025) was an American astrophysicist and a professor of astronomy at Columbia University<ref>Who's who in Frontiers of Science and Technology</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> and a Charles A. Young Professor Emeritus at Princeton, where he also served as a senior research scholar.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Ostriker also served as a university administrator as Provost of Princeton University.

Early life and education

Ostriker was born on the Upper West Side of Manhattan to Martin Ostriker, the proprietor of a clothing company, and Jeanne (Sumpf) Ostriker, a public school teacher.<ref name="NYT" /> He had three siblings. Ostriker became interested in science at a young age, and he later recounted teaching himself difficult subjects, including calculus, writing: "I felt that I learned better on my own than through school".<ref name=":0" /> He received his B.A. from Harvard and his Ph.D from the University of Chicago.

Career and research

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 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.<ref name="bio"/> 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.<ref name=DeSwart2024>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> His research 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. <ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Ostriker was also known for the Ostriker–Peebles criterion, relating to the stability of galactic formation.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Personal life and death

Ostriker married noted poet and essayist Alicia Ostriker (née Suskin) in 1958, and they had three children: Rebecca[1], Eve, and Gabriel.<ref name=NYT>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="bio">Jeremiah P. Ostriker biography</ref> Like her father, Eve became an astrophysics professor at Princeton University, in 2012, the same year as her father's retirement.<ref name=":0">Template:Cite journal</ref> Jeremiah and Alicia Ostriker were residents of Princeton, New Jersey.<ref>"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."</ref>

Ostriker died of renal disease in Manhattan, on April 6, 2025, at the age of 87.<ref name=NYT/>

Publications

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: Template:Div col

• "Precision Cosmology? Not Just Yet"<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
• 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) Template:Doi
• 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). Template:Doi

Awards and honors

Ostriker won numerous awards and honors including: Template:Div col

• Membership of the National Academy of Sciences (1974)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Membership of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1975)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Helen B. Warner Prize for Astronomy of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) (1972)
• Henry Norris Russell Lectureship of the AAS (1980)
• INSA-Vainu Bappu Memorial Award (1993)
• Membership of the American Philosophical Society (1994)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Foreign membership of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (1999)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Karl Schwarzschild Medal (1999)
• National Medal of Science by U.S. President Bill Clinton (2000)
• Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement (2001)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society (2004)
• Elected a Foreign Member of the Royal Society (ForMemRS) in 2007<ref name=formemrs/>
• Bruce Medal (2011)
• James Craig Watson Medal (2012)
• White House Champion of Change (2013)
• Gruber Prize in Cosmology (2015)
• Elected a Legacy Fellow of the American Astronomical Society in 2020. <ref> Template:Cite web </ref>

External links

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