William J. (Bill) Borucki (born 1939) is a space scientist who worked at the NASA Ames Research Center.[1] Upon joining NASA in 1962, Borucki joined the group conducting research on the heat shield for Apollo program spacecraft.[1] He later turned his attention to the optical efficiency of lightning strikes in the atmospheres of planets, investigating the propensity that these lightning strikes could create molecules that would later become the precursors for life.[2] Subsequently, Borucki's attention turned to extrasolar planets and their detection, particularly through the transit method.[2] In light of this work, Borucki was named the principal investigator for NASA's Kepler mission, launched on March 7, 2009[1] and dedicated to a transit-based search for habitable planets.[1] In 2013, Borucki was awarded the United States National Academy of Sciences's Henry Draper Medal for his work with Kepler. In 2015 he received the Shaw Prize in Astronomy.[3]
Born in Chicago in 1939, Borucki grew up in Delavan, Wisconsin.[4] He studied physics at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, earning a master's degree in the subject 1962.[2] Following this, Borucki joined the Hypersonic Free Flight team conducting research on design for Apollo program heat shield,[2] that was designed to protect the spacecraft and their occupants from being destroyed by the heat of re-entry into the atmosphere. After his work for Apollo, Borucki studied meteorologyatSan Jose State University, earning a master's degree in 1982.[5] That year, Borucki began studies at NASA into the nature of lightning, using satellites equipped with instrumentation he helped design in order to discover what fraction of the energy in this lightning went into the production of prebiotic molecules.[2] As a part of this research, Borucki conducted analysis based on observations from space probes in order to find the frequency of lightning on other planets within the Solar System.[2]
By 1984, Borucki's attention had turned to the search for extrasolar planets by use of the transit method,[2] which involves observing the periodic dimming of the star in order to detect the signature of a planet blocking some of its light as it passes in front.[7] In that year and subsequently in 1988, Borucki organized workshops of scientists in order to determine the best methods for achieving transit-based detections of exoplanets, and also worked closely with the National Institute of Standards and Technology to develop photometers that could achieve the sensitivity desired.[2] At the Lick Observatory, Borucki demonstrated the techniques required for extrasolar planet detection by the transit method, and later constructed a ground-based proof-of-concept for a space telescope designed to hunt for planets.[2]
Until his retirement in July 2015,[8] Borucki was the chief investigator for the Kepler space telescope, designed to hunt for exoplanets with the transit method. The telescope has detected 3253 confirmed planets and thousands of likely planet candidates as of December 6, 2022.[9] For his work, he has received the NASA Outstanding Leadership Award, the Popular Mechanics Breakthrough Award in 2009, and the NASA Systems Engineering Excellence Award in 2010, and the Lancelot M. Berkeley Prize for Meritorious Work in Astronomy in 2011.[10] He received the 2013 Henry Draper Medal from the United States National Academy of Sciences[6] "For his founding concept, unflagging advocacy, and visionary leadership during the development of NASA's Kepler mission, which has uncovered myriad planets and solar systems with unforeseen and surprising properties."[11] and the 2015 Shaw Prize in Astronomy for "his conceiving and leading the Kepler mission, which greatly advanced knowledge of both extrasolar planetary systems and stellar interiors."[3] In 2016, he was named as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.[12]
William Borucki married the former Josephine Julia Joyce in 1963. They met while both were students at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, Wisconsin. They have three daughters; Virginia (Joy), Monica, and Stella, five grandchildren; Georgia, Jack, Sydney, Kira, and Madeline, and two step grandchildren; Carina and Marcus (through Stella).
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