Biographical Sketch
Lars Bildsten is the Director of the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics (KITP) and the Gluck Professor of Theoretical Physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He received his PhD in theoretical physics from Cornell University in 1991, where he held a Fannie and John Hertz Graduate Fellowship.
Dr. Bildsten is a theoretical astrophysicist recognized for his work on the properties and behaviors of stars, both when they are burning their thermonuclear fuel for billions of years and when they explode as supernova or emit gravitational waves.
He was at Caltech for three years as the Lee A. DuBridge Research Fellow in Theoretical Astrophysics and was an assistant and associate professor in both the Physics and Astronomy departments at University of California, Berkeley. While there he was awarded an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellowship and a Hellman Family Faculty Fund award. The Research Corporation designated him as a Cottrell Scholar in 1998. In 1999, he was awarded the Helen B. Warner Prize from the American Astronomical Society.
Moving to Santa Barbara in 1999 as a Permanent Member at the KITP, he held the Rosing, Raab Chair in Theoretical Astrophysics prior to becoming Director in 2012.
He was the 2000 Edwin Salpeter Lecturer at Cornell University, the 2004 Biermann Lecturer at the Max-Planck Institute for Astrophysics, the 2010 Beatrice M. Tinsley Centennial Visiting Professor at UT Austin, the 2014 Bishop Lecturer at Columbia University, and the 2023 J. Robert Oppenheimer Lecturer at UC Berkeley. He was awarded the Dannie Heineman Prize for Astrophysics in 2017 and was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2018. He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Physical Society and the American Astronomical Society.
International Service
He was an elected member of the Executive Committee of the High Energy Astrophysics Division of the American Astronomical Society in 2000 and 2001 and the Executive Committee of the Division of Astrophysics of the American Physical Society from 2003-2005. He has served on many NRC panels, including Committee on Astronomy and Astrophysics from 2001 to 2005 and the Panel to Review the Science Requirements for the Terrestrial Planet Finder and Committee on Review of Progress in Astronomy and Astrophysics toward the Decadal Vision in 2005. He was a member of the NSF's Mathematical and Physical Science Advisory Committee from 2004 until 2007. From 2008 to 2010, he served on the Astro2010: The Astronomy and Astrophysics Decadal Survey committee.
From 2007-2018, he was member and Chair (2010, 2016) of the Fachbeirat (Scientific Advisory Board) for the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics, Garching Germany.
He chaired the External Advisory Committee, Keck Institute for Space Studies, Caltech from 2009 to 2012 and was Member and Founding Chair of the LIGO Astronomy and Astrophysics Advisory Panel from 2010 to 2012.
From 2014 to 2023 he was Member and Chair (2020-2022) of the Board of Directors of The Research Corporation for the Advancement of Science.
He was a member from 2018 to 2024 of the Science Advisory Board of the Flatiron Institute, Simons Foundation and from 2020 to now is a Member of the Sloan Fellowship Selection Committee.
He has a long-standing commitment to ensuring the future of time domain astronomy through his work from 2012 to present as a member and Chair (2014-present) of the Board of Directors of the Las Cumbres Observatory.