James E. Gunn

James Edward Gunn (born October 21, 1938) is the Eugene Higgins Professor of Astronomy at Princeton University. Gunn's early theoretical work in astronomy has helped establish the current understanding of how galaxies form, and the properties of the space between galaxies. He also suggested important observational tests to confirm the presence of dark matter in galaxies, and predicted the existence of a Gunn–Peterson trough in the spectra of distant quasars.

Much of Gunn's later work has involved leadership in major observational projects. He developed plans for one of the first uses of digital camera technology for space observation, a project that led to the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, the most extensive three-dimensional mapping of the universe ever undertaken. He also played a major role with the Wide Field and Planetary Camera on the Hubble Space Telescope.

Gunn graduated from A.C. Jones High School in Beeville, Texas in 1957. He earned his bachelor's degree at Rice University in Houston, Texas, in 1961, and his Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in 1965. He joined the faculty of Princeton University two years later. Subsequently, he worked at the University of California at Berkeley and Caltech before returning to Princeton. He is married to the astronomer Gillian Knapp and they have two children, Humberto and Marleny Gunn.

Honors 1977 – Elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 1977 – Elected member of the National Academy of Sciences 1983 – MacArthur Fellow 1987 – Distinguished Alumnus Award, Rice University 1987 – Elected member of the American Philosophical Society 1988 – Heineman Prize 1994 – Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society 2001 – Petrie Prize, Canadian Astronomical Society 2002 – Joseph Weber Award for Astronomical Instrumentation 2002 – Distinguished Alumnus Award, California Institute of Technology 2005 – Crafoord Prize with James Peebles and Martin Rees 2005 – Henry Norris Russell Lectureship of the American Astronomical Society 2005 – Gruber Cosmology Prize 2006 – Honorary Degree from the University of Portsmouth 2008 – National Medal of Science 2013 – Bruce Medal of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific 2019 – Kyoto Prize in Basic Sciences (Earth and Planetary Sciences, Astronomy and Astrophysics)