A life exploring the cosmos, in four acts (so far)
Patrick Stewart Osmer was in the third grade when he discovered his life’s work. It was then that his mother gave him a book about the stars, sparking a fascination with astronomy that has lasted for seven decades—and counting.
Osmer, 79, considers himself lucky to have lived in what he calls the Golden Age of Astronomy, characterized by bold new discoveries. “I grew up at a time of tremendous opportunity in astronomy, the space age, with the first satellites and new views of the universe,” Osmer says. “There were great frontiers opening up. It has been super-exciting, and it still is.”
By his count, Osmer has lived a life of four extraordinary chapters: as director of a major international observatory, chairman of the astronomy department at Ohio State University, dean of graduate studies at Ohio State, and now as professor emeritus at Ohio State and independent researcher who spends much of his time in Greenville.
Almost every weekday, he can be found strolling five minutes from his home to Endeavor, the coworking space in downtown Greenville. There, Osmer connects online to his colleagues at Ohio State who conduct a daily discussion on the latest research on the cosmos. “Wherever I am, I can keep in touch,” he notes.
From a comfortable chair at Endeavor, Osmer also explores new possibilities in his own research specialty: quasars, the distant supermassive black holes that emit the brightest light in the universe.
“The physics of black holes and their relationship with their host galaxies are fascinating problems for an astronomer,” Osmer shares.
Looking Up
Osmer was born in Jamestown, New York, and earned a bachelor’s degree from the Case Institute of Technology and a Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology.
Beginning in 1969, he spent 16 years as an astronomer and eventually director at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in northern Chile.
“Chile has the best conditions in the world for ground-based astronomy,” Osmer says. “We were kind of pioneers in the first observatories in Chile. It was a wonderful experience, working with the largest telescope in the Southern Hemisphere with the most powerful instruments. In Chile, I also learned the language, met my wife, and my two daughters were born there.”
Osmer returned to the States in 1986 to work at the National Optical Astronomy Observatory in Tucson, Arizona. In 1993, he embarked on what he calls the second chapter of his life: Ohio State recruited him to develop a world-class research and graduate program in astronomy.
Osmer served as an astronomy professor and department chair for 13 years before being appointed vice provost and dean of the graduate school at Ohio State in 2006—the third chapter of his life.
In that administrative role, Osmer oversaw 200 masters and doctorate programs and expanded his own research interests. “One of the most enjoyable parts of being the graduate dean was that I got to interact with programs all over campus,” says the astronomer.
He participated in HIV research, among other projects. “I realized there are things we do in astronomy and astrophysics that connect well with the life sciences,” Osmer observes.
He remains a strong advocate of university research and graduate programs. “Our graduate education distinguishes our higher education system,” Osmer believes. “It’s crucial to economic development and our future overall.”
Second Home for Patrick Stewart Osmer
Osmer and his wife Anita first came to Greenville in 2005 to visit their daughter Charlotte, a lawyer with South Carolina Legal Services, and were immediately taken with the Upstate. Since his retirement in 2016 from Ohio State, Osmer and Anita divide their time between Greenville and their longtime home in Columbus, Ohio.
“We bought a place right in downtown Greenville,” he says. “We love the Reedy River and being able to walk everywhere and take advantage of the cultural opportunities. We spend as much time here as we can—especially in winter!”
This latest chapter of his life has allowed Osmer to return to in-depth research in astronomy, which he had partially put on hold during his ten years as dean at Ohio State, and take up new areas, such as computational modeling of HIV.
“Retirement has given me the chance to explore new research areas and catch up on all the amazing developments in astronomy,” Osmer says. “There have been astounding developments in recent years thanks to the Hubble and Webb telescopes. I’m lucky to have lived in a time of revolutionary discoveries in how we view the universe.”
What is a quasar?
The word quasar comes from quasi-stellar radio sources, which were discovered in the 1950s. They looked like stars but were found in the 1960s to be black holes shining very brightly in distant galaxies. Quasars increase in number as we look toward the edge of the visible universe until we see their epoch of peak formation, when the universe was about 20% of its present age of 13.8 billion years. Quasars are now being discovered that were active when the universe was less than a billion years old.
—Patrick Stewart Osmer
Photography by Jack Robert Photography.
