Leading Cosmology Professor Dies at 61

Professor of Cosmology John P. Huchra died Friday. He was 61.

The cause of death had not been publicly released as of last night.

An expert in the large-scale structure of the universe and observational cosmology, Huchra and a number of colleagues started a Redshift Survey, the first attempt to map large-scale structures of the universe.

In 1989, Huchra discovered one of the largest known structures in the universe—a sheet of galaxies over 500 million light-years long and 200 million light-years wide dubbed the Great Wall—with colleague Margaret J. Geller, a senior scientist at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory.

In the last decade, Huchra and Geller measured the relative distance of approximately 18,000 bright galaxies in the northern sky.

“He was an extraordinary scientist,” said Director of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics Charles R. Alcock, a colleague of Huchra’s who first met Huchra as a graduate student at the California Institute of Technology in 1973.

Huchra was willing to “spend an extraordinary amount of time at the telescope,” said Alcock, citing an instance when Huchra worked 130 days with the telescope in a year.

At Harvard, Huchra served as the Senior Advisor to the Provost for Research Policy and was involved in the Center for Astrophysics, according to his homepage on Center’s website.

Huchra was teaching Freshman Seminar 21x: Galaxies and the Universe this fall and was scheduled to lead Astronomy 98: Research Tutorial in Astrophysics in the spring.

Huchra was “absolutely fantastic at nurturing people one on one,” said James M. Moran, professor of astrophysics and chair of the astronomy department.

“Any time a student was uncertain of his future, he was always there,” Moran said. “He was really an incredibly caring person.”

In addition to astronomy, Huchra was also concerned about instilling high ethical standards in his students, according to Moran.

Outside of his work, Huchra was an avid traveler.

He would go on all kinds of “exotic trips” to “obscure places,” Moran said, and as a result of Huchra’s extensive travelling, “he had friends everywhere.”

The Story Chapel at Mount Auburn Cemetery will hold funeral service for Huchra today at 11 a.m.

Huchra is survived by his wife Rebecca M. Henderson, son Harry, sister Christine, and parents Mieccyslaw and Helen.

—Staff writer Sirui Li can be reached at sli@college.harvard.edu.