Gibor Basri

Who is Gibor Basri?

Gibor Basri is an American astrophysicist, born in New York on May 3, 1951.

The son of Phyllis Basri, a professor of dance and ballet, and Saul Basri, professor of physics at the University of Colorado, Basri grew up in Fort Collins, Colorado, together with his younger brother David. The family lived for brief periods in Burma and Sri Lanka.

Basri graduated in physics at Stanford University in 1973, and received his Ph.D. in astrophysics at the University of Colorado in 1979. His thesis, under the supervision of Jeffrey Linsky, was on stellar activity, based on observations by the International Ultraviolet Explorer satellite, of which he was one of the first users. A postdoctoral award took him to the U.C. Berkeley astronomy department where he has been a professor since 1994. His work there originally focused on high-energy observations of stars. In the last decade he turned to studies of star formation. Basri's most noteworthy work includes a 1980 study of T Tauri-type stars, and he is recognized as a world expert on brown dwarf stars.

In 2011, as vice chancellor for equity and inclusion for the U.C. Berkeley campus, he served as a communicator between the university administration and students supporting the Occupy movement.