2003 Frederic H. Chaffee, PhD

Director, W. M. Keck Observatory, Hawaii
Lecture: The Keck Observatory at the Dawn of the New Millennium

Dr. Frederic H. Chaffee is the director of the W. M. Keck Observatory. He received a Bachelor’s Degree in Physics from Dartmouth College in 1963, and his Ph.D. in Astronomy from the University of Arizona in 1968. He spent the next 28 years as a research astronomer with the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, MA, eventually assisting in establishing their telescope facility on Mt. Hopkins in Southern Arizona and becoming the Observatory’s Resident Director in 1981.

In 1984, he became Director of the Multiple Mirror Telescope Observatory on Mt. Hopkins, a facility jointly operated by the Smithsonian and the University of Arizona.

In 1986, he was appointed the first Director of the W.M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii, which operates the world’s two largest telescopes for Caltech and the University of California. The twin Keck 10m telescopes are located on the 14,000 foot summit of Mauna Kea, the highest point in the Pacific, on the big island of Hawaii.

Dr. Chaffee’s research interests have included the interstellar medium and the spectroscopy of Quasars. He now delivers the Ablin Lecture of the Western Neurosurgical Society for 2002.