Robert McMillan

Robert McMillan is an Associate Research Scientist at the University of Arizona's Steward Observatory. Dr. McMillan runs the Spacewatch Project, which leads the world in the numbers of astrometric observations of potentially hazardous asteroids while they are distant and faint. With Tom Gehrels, McMillan guided the first CCD surveying for asteroids and comets. A 1.8-meter telescope was built for this purpose. The venerable 0.9-m telescope of Steward Observatory has also been fitted with new optics and detectors, and runs automatically. McMillan now helps plan asteroid research as a member of the Science Team of the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) spacecraft mission, which in 2010 will map the whole sky in the thermal infrared.