Prof. Dr. Jonas Žmuidzinas received his B.S. degree in physics from the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, in 1981, and his Ph.D. degree in physics from the University of California at Berkeley, in 1987. In 1988–1989 he was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He joined the physics faculty at the California Institute of Technology in 1989. Prof. Dr. Jonas Žmuidzinas was the Director of Micro-Devices Laboratory at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory until 2016. Since 2018 he is the Director of Caltech Optical Observatories.
Jonas Žmuidzinas’ research focuses on astrophysics at submillimeter and far-infrared wavelengths, including the development of superconducting detectors and multiplexing techniques as well as instruments for ground-based, airborne and space telescopes. His research group is involved in various projects, including Herschel/HIFI, SOFIA, and the Caltech Submm Observatory (CSO) on Mauna Kea. Dr. Žmuidzinas currently serves as Caltech’s project scientist for the Cerro Chajnantor Atacama Telescope, a proposed 25-meter telescope in Atacama, Chile and currently serves as the Merle Kingsley Professor of Physics at Caltech.
Prof. Dr. Jonas Žmuidzinas has served as a reviewer and advisor for NASA, NSF, the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, Sandia National Laboratories, other U.S. government agencies and international science agencies, and is author or co-author of over 250 scientific articles.
Photo source: California Institute of Technology
