2022 Leroy E. Doggett Prize Awarded to William H. Donahue

Dr. William H. Donahue

Dr. William H. Donahue, recipient of the 2022 LeRoy E. Doggett Prize for Historical Astronomy. Photo courtesy of William Donahue.

Dr. William H. Donahue (St. John’s College/Green Lion Press) is the recipient of the 2022 LeRoy E. Doggett Prize for Historical Astronomy. The Doggett Prize, awarded biennially by the American Astronomical Society’s (AAS) Historical Astronomy Division (HAD), goes to an individual who has significantly influenced the field through a career-long effort.

In his decades-spanning career, Donahue has made many contributions to the history of astronomy from antiquity to the early modern period. The most significant are his essential translations into English of Johannes Kepler’s Astronomia Nova (New Astronomy, 1609) and Astronomiae Pars Optica (Optical Part of Astronomy, often referred to simply as Optics, 1604). The translation of these complex scientific works demonstrates his scientific knowledge, necessary to understand the technical aspects of the books, and his linguistic skill, essential to read the original texts and convert them to English correctly.

The Doggett Prize will be presented to him at a plenary session of the 239th AAS meeting in January 2022 in Salt Lake City, Utah. For more information, visit https://had.aas.org/awards_and_prizes/doggett_prize/2022.