Abstract
Riccardo Giacconi joined the American Science and Engineering Corporation (AS & E) after leaving Princeton University in 1959, and in 1962 his group there detected the first extrasolar Xray source. Prof. Giacconi was subsequently responsible for the launch and use of the satellite UHURU (1970) and the EINSTEIN observatory (1978). He was appointed Associate Director of the High Energy Astrophysics Division of the HarvardβSmithsonian Center for Astrophysics in 1973 and was also appointed Professor of Astronomy at Harvard University that same year. In 1981 he became the first Director of the Space Telescope Science Institute and was also appointed Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Johns Hopkins University. In 1992 he was appointed Director General of the European Southern Observatory, an intergovernmental organization of eight nations. Prof. Giaconni is currently President of Associated Universities, Inc., and Research Professor at Johns Hopkins University. He was awarded the Wolf Prize in 1987, and the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2002.