Kaler was born to Earl and Hazel Holmgren Kaler on December 29th, 1938. After elementary and high-school education in Albany, New York, Kaler earned hisA.B. at theUniversity of Michigan in 1960. He attended graduate school at the University of Michigan (1960–61), atChristian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel (Germany, 1961–62), andUCLA (1962–64), where he also obtained hisPh.D. inAstronomy 1964. His thesis advisor wasLawrence H. Aller. He was married to Maxine Grossman and they had four children.[1] Kaler died due to complications of Parkinson's Disease on November 26, 2022, at the age of 83.[2]
Kaler started his professional career with appointments as a research and teaching assistant at the University of Michigan from 1958 to summer 1960. In 1961 he worked as an astronomer with theUnited States Naval Observatory. In 1964 he was appointed as anassistant professor of Astronomy by theUniversity of Illinois, and promoted toassociate professor in 1968 and to afull professor position in 1976 (all at University of Illinois). Since 1995 he is Campus Honors Faculty.[3] In 2003 he retired to becomeprofessor emeritus at the University of Illinois.[3]
Kaler published over 120 papers. Examples include work on
Jim Kaler has written for a variety of magazines, and was a consultant forTime-Life Books. He has long appeared onIllinois television and radio. In addition to two textbooks and three audio courses, he published several books, including[18]
First Magnitude: A Book of the Bright Sky
Stars and their Spectra,
The Ever-Changing Sky,
Extreme Stars (American Association of Publishers Outstanding Professional and Scholarly Title in Physics and Astronomy for 2001),
