Edward L. (Ned) Wright (born August 25, 1947 inWashington, D.C.) is an Americanastrophysicist andcosmologist. He has worked on space missions including theCosmic Background Explorer (COBE),Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), andWilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) projects.
Wright received his ABscl (Physics in 1969) andPhD (Astronomy in 1976) degrees in high-altitude rocket measurement of cosmic microwave background radiation fromHarvard University, where he was ajunior fellow. After teaching as a tenured associate professor in theMIT Physics Department for a while, Wright has been a professor atUCLA since 1981.[1]
Wright researchesinfrared astronomy and cosmology. He has studied fractal dust grains which are able to absorb and emit efficiently at millimeter wavelengths, and other aspects that may be important factors in understanding thecosmic microwave background. As an interdisciplinary scientist on the Space InfraRed Telescope Facility (SIRTF) Science Working Group,[2] Wright has worked on the SIRTF project (renamed the Spitzer Space Telescope) since 1976. He was an active member of the teams working on the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) since 1978. He is the principal investigator of the Wide field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) project.[3] Wright is also a member of the current science team on the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP), which was launched in June 2001. WMAP followed up the COBE discovery of early fluctuations in the developingUniverse.
From 1994 to 1998, he served as a science editor ofThe Astrophysical Journal.
