Roger Angel Graduate Student Scholarship in Optical Sciences

Roger Angel is a Regents’ Professor of astronomy and optical sciences at the University of Arizona. After earning his Ph.D. at Oxford University (UK) and researching X-ray astronomy at Columbia University, he joined the UA faculty in 1974. He turned to optical astronomy first as an observer, and then as an instrument designer.

In 1985, Angel founded the Steward Observatory Mirror Laboratory to exploit the honeycomb glass technology and stressed-lap polishing concepts he invented. The lab’s mirrors have been installed on the world's most advanced optical telescopes, including the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope and the Giant Magellan Telescope. Angel pioneered adaptive secondary telescope mirrors and the widely adopted use of optical fibers to perform multiobject spectroscopy. He also developed concepts for imaging and searching for primitive life on Earth-like planets orbiting nearby stars.

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Concerned with global climate change, he has explored ways to cool the Earth with a space sunshade and now works on concentrating photovoltaic systems for solar energy. He is the founder and chief technology officer of the company REhnu.

Over the past 40 years, Angel has supervised the doctoral theses of 20 students. He has received the Kavli Prize in Astrophysics and a MacArthur Fellowship and is a fellow of the Royal Society and the National Academy of Sciences.

This scholarship was made possible by the generosity from the Frederick Gardner Cottrell Foundation and the Angel family.

Eligibility: 

The Roger Angel Graduate Student Scholarship is open to talented students worldwide, and selection will be based on academic excellence. Selection preference will also be given to candidates with interest in optics to mitigate global warming by improving solar energy, for example, or energy efficiency. This FoTO (Friends of Tucson Optics) scholarship is to be awarded to a first-year graduate student.