William R. Ward
Southwest Research Institute
January 11, 1944 - September 20, 2018
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Scientific Discipline: Geophysics Membership Type:
Member
(elected 2015)
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Dr. William R. Ward is a theoretical astrophysicist specializing in planetary and disk dynamics, having authored multiple influential studies in these areas. Born and raised in Kansas City, Ward graduated from the University of Missouri at KC (UMKC) with BS degrees in both physics and mathematics in 1968, and from Caltech with a PhD in Planetary Sciences in 1973. This was followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at the Harvard/Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics before joining the research staff of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in 1977. In 1998, he moved to a newly established Boulder, CO office of the Southwest Research Institute. Ward is a fellow of the American Geophysical Union, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the National Academy of Sciences. He has received two lifetime achievement awards from the American Astronomical Society: the Brouwer Award of the Division of Dynamical Astronomy and the Kuiper Prize from the Division of Planetary Sciences.
