History

About the Astronomy Department

Astronomy officially began at the University of Massachusetts in 1959, when UMass became a founding member of the Four College Astronomy Department (FCAD), which linked the University, Amherst College, Mount Holyoke College, and Smith College (expanded to the Five College Astronomy Department in 1970, with the addition of Hampshire College). The proposal to form the joint Department noted that "good teaching and active research go together", and a principal motivation for FCAD was the desire to share teaching responsibilities so that astronomers on each of the campuses would have the time necessary to carry out research. Fulfilling the concomitant desire to initiate a graduate program was delayed until 1966, when UMass reorganized its physics program into a Department of Physics and Astronomy which included three newly appointed UMass members of FCAD (who thus became members of two departments). William Irvine became both Chair of the Astronomy Program at the University and Chair of FCAD, and a Graduate Astronomy Program was officially approved at UMass the next year. The graduate faculty for astronomy includes all members of FCAD. From 3 faculty members in 1966, the UMass Astronomy Program expanded over the following decade to 10 and eventually to 15. Currently there are 13 tenure system Astronomy faculty at UMass, 5 research faculty, 11 postdocs and 20 graduate students. There are 5 more faculty at the four private colleges, and FCAD has two postdoc/lecturers. The University of Massachusetts has the only Astronomy Program at any of the public universities in New England, while the Five College Astronomy Department remains a model of inter-institutional cooperation.

The initial 3 UMass astronomers were all theoreticians. However, an observational component of the graduate program was clearly needed. Given the less than optimum skies of New England, the Department decided to invest in radio astronomy and a balloon-borne infrared program. The latter concentrated on studies of the Sun and planets, plus fundamental laboratory measurements of molecular spectra. After several successful years under the leadership of John Strong, this program was ultimately phased out after his retirement. The Five College Radio Astronomy Observatory (FCRAO), in contrast, rapidly established an international reputation under the leadership of Richard Huguenin, and it continues to flourish today. Initially built as a low frequency facility for the study of pulsars, FCRAO from the beginning emphasized the development of state-of-the-art instrumentation and student training as well as basic research. A high point of this approach was clearly the discovery of the first binary pulsar, which led to the 1993 Nobel Prize in physics for Joseph Taylor and his graduate student, Russell Hulse.

The rapid development of molecular astrophysics inspired the Department to change the direction of FCRAO, and the 14-meter telescope for millimeter-wavelength radio astronomy was dedicated in 1976. It was at that time the largest aperture American telescope operating at these wavelengths, and the second largest in the world. Major accomplishments for this facility include the UMass-Stony Brook Galactic Plane Survey, the FCRAO External Galaxy CO Survey, continuing studies of the physics and chemistry of the molecular ISM (including extensive probing of the chemistry of dark clouds), and more recent projects such as the Boston-University-UMass Survey of the inner Milky Way. These and other research projects were made possible by the state-of-the-art instrumentation developed at FCRAO under the leadership of Paul Goldsmith, Neal Erickson, and others; a recent example is the SEQUOIA focal plane array. Likewise, a major accomplishment of FCRAO has been the training of Ph.D.s in radio astronomy and instrumentation development, many of whom are now in senior roles in universities and research institutions in the US and abroad.

Ultimately, as larger telescopes were built in the US, Europe, and Japan, it became clear that a new direction was needed for radio astronomy at UMass. Following initial planning in 1989-90, a partnership was developed with the Instituto Nacional de Astrofísica, Óptica y Electrónica (INAOE) in Mexico, which has led to the Large Millimeter Telescope (LMT), scheduled for commissioning in late 2004/early 2005. Two of our faculty hires (Min Yun and Grant Wilson) in 2000 have been in direct support of the LMT project.

In the mean time, it was naturally realized at UMass that it would be highly desirable to expand the opportunities in observational astronomy into the shorter wavelength region. Steve Strom was hired in 1983 to lead this effort, which involved extensive use of NOAO facilities and collaborations with the University of Wyoming's WIRO infrared telescope and the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico's facilities in Baja California. An active program of research on star formation and the properties of young stellar objects resulted. One outgrowth of these efforts was the 2MASS infrared sky survey. Much of our impetus in this direction was lost with the departure of three prominent faculty members in optical and infrared observational astronomy. However, we remain committed to broadening our observational program, and two of our recent hires have been used to further this goal. The arrival of Daniel Wang has established a vibrant research program in observational high energy astrophysics, using primarily the Chandra Observatory for X-ray measurements. Todd Tripp, who more recently joined the faculty, is providing expertise in ultraviolet and optical spectroscopic studies of interstellar and intergalactic medium.

In 1988, a collaborative program among UMass, the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, MIT's Lincoln Laboratories, and the University of Wyoming was begun to build the Infrared Optical Telescope Array (IOTA) on Mount Hopkins in Arizona. This interferometer of originally 2 and now 3 telescopes is measuring the diameters of stars and has begun to image interesting stellar systems. One UMass Ph.D. has so far been produced. UMass also played a major role in NASA's International Halley Watch, leading the radio science component of this cometary program. Another cooperative effort has been the Submillimeter-Wave Astronomy Satellite (SWAS), to which UMass has contributed both instrumental and observational/analysis components.

Research in theoretical astrophysics continued at a modest level over the years, but has become a major emphasis more recently with the arrival of Martin Weinberg, Neal Katz, and Houjun Mo. The current research on dynamics and the formation of structure in the early universe continues the UMass tradition of cosmological research and fits will with observational programs planned for the LMT.

As the Astronomy program grew and became more multidimensional, it was decided that further development could best be pursued if Astronomy were an independent department at UMass, rather than a component of the Department of Physics and Astronomy. The establishment of a separate Astronomy Department was officially completed in 2000.