Concept
Jeffrey Richard Kuhn, also known as Jeff Kuhn, is an American physicist and astronomer who is a professor of astronomy at the University of Hawaii. He is known for his contributions to astrophysics and the search for extraterrestrial life, particularly in the areas of telescope and detection system development, the study of the Sun and its corona, and the search for planets around other stars. Kuhn received his bachelor's degree in physics and mathematics from Kalamazoo College in 1977, and then earned his master's and doctoral degrees in physics from Princeton University in 1979 and 1981, respectively, under the supervision of Robert Dicke. Kuhn has held positions at various universities, including Princeton and Michigan State University, and has served as a visiting professor at several institutions around the world. He joined the Institute for Astronomy in Honolulu in 1997 and served as its associate director and director of the IfA/Maui division until 2015. He has made contributions to the fields of astrophysics and the search for extraterrestrial life. He is known for his work on the development of telescopes and detection systems, including the Princeton Solar Distortion Telescope (PSDT), the National Solar Observatory Precision Solar Photometric Telescope (PSPT), and the University of Hawaii Solar Observatory for Limb Active Regions and Coronae (Solar-C). He has also contributed to the design of the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope (DKIST) and the Giant Magellan Telescope, and has conceived of other telescopes that are in the planning or construction phases, including the Polarized Light from Atmospheres of Nearby Extra-Terrestrial Systems (PLANETS) telescope and the Exo-Life Finder telescopes (ELF and MiniELF). In addition to his work on telescopes, Kuhn has also made contributions to the study of the Sun and its corona. He has developed various infrared instruments for solar and solar coronal spectroscopy and spectropolarimetry, and has used satellite experiments to study small changes in the Sun's shape and brightness.
