Charles Robert O'Dell

Charles Robert O'Dell (born March 16, 1937 in rural Hamilton County, Illinois) is an American
observational astronomer. He is currently the Distinguished Research Professor of Astrophysics
at Vanderbilt University and 
Andrew Hayes Buchanan Professor of Astrophysics (emeritus) at
Rice University.
He attended Illinois State University from 1955 to 1959. He received his Ph.D. from the
University of Wisconsin in 1962. In 1962-1963 was a Carnegie Institution for Science Fellow at the combined Mt. Wilson Observatory and 
Palomar Observatory based in Pasadena, California. From 1963 to 1964 he was an Assistant Professor
at the University of California at Berkeley. In 1964-1972 he was at the University of Chicago,
where he became a Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics and served as Chair of his
department and Director of Chicago's 
Yerkes Observatory.
In 1972-1983 he served as the lead scientist for the Hubble Space Telescope in his NASA role as its
Project Scientist. He led the advocacy for its creation and its design as a scientific
observatory. He then led the formulation of policy for its scientific operation through the Space Telescope Science Institute and the establishment of open access to its data throughout the astronomical community.
In 1982 he became a Professor of Space Physics and Astronomy at Rice University, retiring as
Andrew Hayes Buchanan Professor of Astrophysics in 2000. In his present position at Vanderbilt University, he continues his career-long study of the interstellar medium.
His early research concentrated on the misnamed planetary nebulae, (they are not planets, they only look like our outer planets). He used observations and theory to establish their role in stellar evolution. They are the expelled atmospheres of stars, only slightly more massive than the Sun, that have run out of nuclear fuel. The stars drop in size, in only a few tens of thousand years, from being red giants, the size of our inner Solar System, to being white dwarfs, the size of our Earth.
Much of his current activity is
focused on the nearby star-formation region, the Orion Nebula. 
In 1993 he used the Hubble Space Telescope to discover in the Orion Nebula a new class of object, the proplyds, that provide clear-cut proof that ordinary star formation includes disks from
which planets can form. Since then, his research has concentrated on how these objects are
created and interact with their natal material.
An avid aviator, he participated as a pilot on the USA team in the 
FAI World Glider Aerobatic
Championships in 1985, 1987, 1989, and 1993. As a mountaineer, he teamed in the 1960's with astronomers George Wallerstein and Lyman Spitzer on several first-ascents of mountains in British Columbia, Canada.
==Honors and awards==
He is a Fellow of the American Astronomical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He received the 
NASA Public Service Medal in 1991 for his early
leadership role on the Hubble Space Telescope. He was awarded a Doctor of Science degree
from Illinois State University in 2001. He received the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland from the Polish State (1978) and the 
Benedykt Polak Prize from the Warsaw Scientific Society (2016)
in recognition of his work in establishing the
Nicolaus Copernicus Astronomical Center of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw. He is a foreign member of the Polish Academy of Sciences. He received a senior 
Alexander von Humboldt Prize from the 
Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in
1996.
Category:1937 births
Category:People from Hamilton County, Illinois
Category:American people
Category:Illinois State University alumni
Category:Observational astronomy