James ("Jim") Bailey Kaler (b. 1938), professor emeritus (2003-), was assistant professor (1964-68), associate professor (1968-76), and professor (1976-2003) of astronomy at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). He is a science writer and astronomer best known for his research contributions to the study of dying stars and planetary nebulae.
Kaler was born in Albany, New York, on December 29, 1938. He earned a bachelor's degree (1960) in astronomy from the University of Michigan and a PhD in astronomy from UCLA (1964). He worked as a research and teaching assistant at the University of Michigan (1958-60) and an astronomer at the United States Naval Observatory (1961) before joining the UIUC astronomy faculty in 1964. At UIUC, Kaler taught a number of courses, including Stellar Atmospheres; Gaseous Nebulae and the Interstellar Medium; and Observational Astronomy. He also lectured widely, presenting the Armand Spitz Lecture to the Great Lakes Planetarium Association in 1999 and the Margaret Noble Address to the Middle Atlantic Planetarium Society in 2003. Over the course of his career, Kaler has authored more than 120 scientific papers on topics that include stellar evolution and the chemical composition and emission lines of planetary nebulae. He has also written prolifically about dying stars for popular news media outlets as well as for his own dedicated websites, Skylights and Stars. His published books include Stars and their Spectra (1997), The Ever-Changing Sky (2002), and Heaven's Touch (2009).
Kaler has been widely recognized for his work, receiving Fulbright and Guggenheim (1972) fellowships, medals from the University of Liege in Belgium and the University of Mexico, the UIUC Campus Award for Excellence in Public Engagement (2003), and the American Astronomical Society's Education Prize (2008). He served as president of the Boards of Directors of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific (2007-2009) and, most recently, was elected legacy fellow of the American Astronomical Society (2020). Asteroid 1998 JK was named in his honor (17853 Kaler).
Sources:
Wikipedia, s.v. "James B. Kaler," accessed April 29, 2020, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_B._Kaler.
"Biographical Sketch," James B. Kaler (professional website), accessed April 29, 2020, http://stars.astro.illinois.edu/bio.html.
"Complete Vita," James B. Kaler (professional website), accessed April 29, 2020, http://stars.astro.illinois.edu/bio.html.
"Skylights," accessed January 11, 2021, http://stars.astro.illinois.edu/skylights.html.
"Stars," accessed January 11, 2021, http://stars.astro.illinois.edu/sow/sow.html.
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