caption death_date death_place religion birth_place image_size nationality fields birth_date alma_mater residence image article_title name death_cause
robert a. schommer 12 december 2001 la serena , chile catholic chicago , united states 170px american astronomy , astrophysics 9 december 1946 university of washington united states , chile robert_a_schommer . jpg robert schommer
 robert a. schommer suicide
robert schommer

robert a. schommer -lrb- december 9 , 1946 -- december 12 , 2001 -rrb- was an american observational astronomer .
he was a professor at rutgers university and later a project scientist for the u.s. office of the gemini observatory project at the cerro tololo inter-american observatory -lrb- ctio -rrb- in chile .
he was known for his wide range of research interests , from stellar populations to cosmology .
robert schommer was born in chicago , illinois to harvey and bea schommer .
he received a b.a. in physics 1970 from the university of chicago in 1970 and a ph.d. in astronomy from the university of washington in 1977 , where he continued for one year as instructor .
following two years in seminary college in chicago , he held postdoctoral positions at caltech -lrb- chaim weizmann fellow -rrb- , the hale observatories , the university of chicago , and cambridge university -lrb- nato postdoctoral fellow -rrb- before joining the department of physics at the state university of new jersey .
he became increasingly unhappy with the department 's unwillingness to support astronomy , and in 1990 he moved to ctio in chile where he remained until his death in 2001 .
