George Blumenthal
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
George Blumenthal born 1945 is an American professor and astronomer and as of September 19, 2007 Chancellor of the University of California, Santa Cruz. Until then he had served 14 months as acting chancellor, having been appointed July 14, 2006.
He is known particularly for his work with Santa Cruz colleagues Sandra M. Faber and Joel Primack and with Martin Rees of Cambridge University on dark matter. Their theory of cold dark matter, developed in the 1980s, remains the standard explanation of the formation of galaxies and galaxy clusters. Blumenthal has also worked in many other areas of astrophysics, including the study of gamma-ray bursts, accretion disks, active galaxies, and the microwave background radiation left by the big bang.
Before becoming Acting Chancellor, Blumenthal was the chair of the UC Santa Cruz Academic Senate from 2001 to 2003 and then served one year each as Vice Chair and Chair of the University of California Academic Senate.
He holds a B.S. in physics from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and a Ph.D. in physics from the University of California, San Diego.
