Jacchia, Luigi Giuseppe

Born Trieste, (Italy), 4 June 1910

Died Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, 8 May 1996

Variable star astronomer Luigi Jacchia received his Ph.D. degree in physics at the University of Bologna in 1932, where he became an instructor after graduating. Already an experienced observer of variables, he published a comprehensive work on the subject in 1933. After teaching at Bologna from 1932 to 1938, Jacchia immigrated to the United States where he was employed as a Research Assistant at Harvard College Observatory [HCO] in 1939. During World War II, Jacchia worked as scientific consultant for the United States Office of War Information, Foreign Language Broadcasting and Monitoring Service. After the war he returned to HCO but was also employed as a research associate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology [MIT] from 1949 to 1953. In 1956, Fred Whipple invited Jacchia to join the newly reorganized headquarters of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory [SAO] as a physicist when that...