From Wikipedia:
Robert Kirshner is Clowes Professor of Science in the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics at Harvard University. His notable scientific work centers around the use of Supernovae to measure the expansion of the universe.
He is the author of The Extravagant Universe : Exploding Stars, Dark Energy, and the Accelerating Cosmos (2002; ISBN 978-0-691-05862-7) and has been a member of the National Academy of Sciences since 1998. He was the President of the American Astronomical Society in 2004-2006.
He received his undergraduate degree magna cum laude in Astronomy from Harvard in 1970, and his Ph.D., also in Astronomy, from Caltech. Prior to joining Harvard in 1985, he worked at Kitt Peak National Observatory and taught at the University of Michigan for 9 years.
