Bok Resigns to Direct Australian Observatory

Astronomer Bart J. Bok will leave the University to become director of the Commonwealth Observatory of Australia and professor of Astronomy at the Australian National University.

Bok, now Robert Wheeler Wilson Professor of Applied Astronomy, will terminate, on Feb. 1, 1957, a career at the University which dates from 1927.

By going to Australia, Bok, currently prominent in radio astronomy, will be able to resume studies of the Southern Milky Way, his lifelong interest. These studies have ben in abeyance since a 1953 decision by the University to give up total control of the Observatory's Boyden Station at Bloemfontein, South Africa, where Bok had done significant research.

The commonwealth Observatory, at Canberra, has a 74-inch reflector telescope, and many similar instruments. The great telescope is one of the two largest in the southern hemisphere.

Bok's recent work has been in radio astronomy. He is co-director of the Harvard Radio Astronomy Project at the George R. Agassiz Station at Harvard, Mass. The Station has pioneered in research and training in this productive new field, and on April 28 dedicated a new 60-foot radio telescope, the largest in the country.

At Canberra, Bok will concentrate in optical work, but hopes to cooperate with the Radio-Physics Laboratory of Sydney, the leading radio astronomy center in the southern hemisphere.

Work With Undergraduates

Bok has been known for his work with undergraduates here. This year he taught Natural Sciences 7 along with L. Don Leet, professor of Geology. He also started a series of concentrators' dinners for undergraduates in astronomy, a plan that is developing into a tutorial program for next year.

Donald H. Menzel, Director of the College Observatory, said Bok's resignation "leaves a serious gap in the Harvard Observatory staff and in the Department of Astronomy."

Bok's resignation leaves the Department with only four permanent Faculty members: Menzel; Cecilia H. PayneGaposchkin, Phillips Astronomer; Harlow Shapley, Paine Professor of Practical Astronomy; and Fred L. Whipple, professor of Astronomy and Department chairman.