A. Lange: Biography

Italy - USA

Paolo de Bernardis and Andrew Lange

2006 Balzan Prize for Observational Astronomy and Astrophysics

For their contributions to cosmology, in particular the BOOMERanG Antarctic balloon experiment.

Biographical data  
ANDREW LANGE (* 23 July 1957 Urbana, Illinois, † 22 January 2010 Pasadena, California) was the Marvin L. Goldberger Professor of Physics at California Institute of Technology  in Pasadena, CA. 

Lange received his B.A. in Physics summa cum laude from Princeton University (1980), and his Ph.D. in Physics from the University of California at Berkeley (1987).

From 1987 to 1993, he was Assistant Professor of Physics, University of California at Berkeley. At Caltech, he was Associate Professor of Physics from 1993 to 1994 and Professor of Physics from 1994 to 2001, when he became Marvin L. Goldberger Professor of Physics. In 2006 he was named a senior research scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and in 2008 was appointed chair of the Division of Physics, Mathematics and Astronomy.  

Lange has spent his career developing new techniques to study the Cosmic Microwave Background. He led the U.S. team of the international research project BOOMERanG. At the time of his untimely death, he was Principal Investigator of the BICEP telescope at the South Pole, and U.S. Principal Investigator of the High Frequency Instrument for the ESA Planck satellite.

In 2003, Lange received the California Scientist of the Year prize, as co-recipient with Saul Perlmutter, and in 2009 he was awarded the Dan David Prize, with Paolo de Bernardis and Paul Richards.

Active in learned societies, he was a Member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences (since 2005), the National Academy of Sciences (since 2004) and a Fellow of the American Physical Society (since 2002).

(January 2010)