Cornelis A. "Neil" Gehrels

October 3, 1952 – February 6, 2017   (64)

Neil was an American astrophysicist specializing in the field of gamma-ray astronomy. He was Chief of the Astro particle Physics Laboratory at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center from 1995 until his death, and was best known for his work developing the field from early balloon instruments to today's space observatories such as the NASA Swift mission, for which he was the Principal Investigator. He was leading the WFIRST wide-field infrared telescope forward toward a launch in the mid-2020s. He was a member of the   and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Gehrels died on February 6, 2017, at the age of 64.^[1] On January 10th, 2018, NASA announced that Swift had been renamed the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, in his honor.^[2]. 

Gehrels was born in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, on October 3, 1952. His father was astronomer Tom Gehrels. He grew up in Tucson, Arizona, and attended the University of Arizona as an undergraduate student. He received bachelor's degrees in music and physics from U of A in 1976. He received his Ph.D. in physics in 1982 from the California Institute of Technology, with advisor Edward C. Stone. He took a postdoctoral position at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in 1981 working with Bonnard Teegarden. In 1982, he became permanent at Goddard as an astrophysicist. He is survived by his wife, Ellen Williams, who is a professor of physics at the University of Maryland and Director of ARPA-E at the Department of Energy. They have two children, Thomas (born 1987) and Emily (born 1990).

(There are several links in this article to other articles about Neil and his associations.)