Contact:	Bob Nelson						For immediate release
			(212) 854-5573					May 1, 1997
			rjn2@columbia.edu




Columbia Ph.D. Wins Trumpler Award
For Studies of Collisions Between Galaxies


	John Hibbard, a 1995 Ph.D. in astrophysics from Columbia University, has 
won the Astronomical Society of the Pacific's annual Trumpler Award for his 
dissertation on galactic dynamics.  The award is given to one recent Ph.D. each 
year whose research is considered unusually important to astronomy.

	The award consists of a plaque and a check for $500 and is to be presented 
June 29 at the Society's summer scientific meeting in Chicago.

	Dr. Hibbard, who came to Columbia after working as a member of the 
technical staff at Hughes Aircraft Missile Systems Group in Canoga Park, Calif., 
wrote his dissertation on galaxy mergers after conducting observations at the 
Very Large Array radio telescope in Socorro, N.M.  He traced in considerable 
detail the location and motions of the gaseous components of these systems.  His 
advisor was Jacqueline van Gorkom, professor of astronomy and a leading expert 
on the gas properties and dynamics of galaxies.

	"It is becoming evident that most galaxies experience one or more very 
violent interactions at some point in their lifetime, during which their size and 
shape is considerably altered and many of their stars are formed," Dr. Hibbard 
said.  "It was very exciting to be able to study in detail such cosmologically 
important events taking place in nearby galaxies."

	"The results mean that, for the first time, work on galaxy interactions has a 
quantitative description against which to test models," said David J. Helfand, 
professor and chairman of astronomy at Columbia, who nominated Dr. Hibbard
for the award.  "I have no doubt that John's thesis will be regarded 10 years from 
now as a classic piece of work that inaugurated a new era in this field."

	Dr. Hibbard currently holds a Hubble Fellowship at the University of 
Hawaii Institute for Astronomy.  In September, he will take up a position
as the Jansky Fellow at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory.



This document is available at http://www.columbia.edu/cu/pr/.


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