- Leon Mestel
Leon Mestel (born
5 August ,1927 ) is a Britishastronomer who has won both theEddington Medal (1993) andGold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society (2002).He was born in Melbourne, Australia, and came to England at the age of three, where he lived in
Forest Gate , East London. He was the son of RabbiSolomon Mestel and Rachel, née Brodetsky, sister ofSelig Brodetsky . He was educated atWest Ham Secondary School ,London andTrinity College, Cambridge .He was ICI Research Fellow, Department of
Mathematics ,University of Leeds , 1951-4 andCommonwealth Fund Fellow atPrinceton University Observatory, 1954-5.Returning to England, he was a lecturer in mathematics at the
University of Cambridge , 1955-1966, and fellow of St John's College, 1957-1966, including a period as visiting member of theInstitute for Advanced Study inPrinceton, New Jersey in 1961-2. Before taking up his appointment as professor of applied mathematics at theUniversity of Manchester , he was JFK fellow at theWeizmann Institute ,Israel , 1966-7. He became professor ofastronomy at theUniversity of Sussex in 1973 and retired in 1992, becomingEmeritus Professor .He was elected a Fellow of the
Royal Society of London in 1977.His research interests are in the area of
astrophysics , including:stellar structure ,stellar evolution ,star formation , cosmical magnetism andpulsar electrodynamics .His son,
Jonathan Mestel , is a noted mathematician and an internationally renownedchess player.External links
*http://astronomy.sussex.ac.uk/people/lmestel.html
ee also
*
List of British Jewish scientists
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