Ed Nather

Roy Edward Nather (September, 23 1926 – August 13, 2014) was an American astronomer, who at the time of his death, was professor emeritus in Astronomy at University of Texas at Austin. He pioneered the fields of asteroseismology of white dwarfs, and observational studies of interacting binary collapsed stars.

He served as the director of the Whole Earth Telescope for the first decade of its existence, and achieved internet fame by posting the Story of Mel, a Real Programmer, on Usenet.

Biography Nather was born September 23, 1926, in Helena, Montana, to Frederick Bucklin Nather and Florence K. Skillman. He joined the United States Navy serving in the Second World War as an electrical technician in Palawan Island, Philippines and Guam. After the war he attended Whitman College, and was awarded an undergraduate in English.

He then worked for General Electric at the Hanford Engineer Works, a nuclear production facility in Washington state built for the Manhattan Project.

From 1960 to 1961 Nather worked as a programmer for Royal McBee, a computer company, where he was impressed by the programming skills of his colleague Melvin Kaye.

As Nather didn't hold a graduate degree he was prevented from becoming a member of the department's faculty. In 1997 he was awarded the Maria and Eric Muhlmann Award by the Astronomical Society of the Pacific for his work on the Whole Earth Telescope.