Rodgers, Alexander William

Professor Alex Rodgers was well known for several important ideas in the evolution of stellar populations that were well ahead of their time. In the 1970s, he anticipated the current work on the formation of the Galactic halo via the accretion of small galaxies by the Milky Way. He was among the first to show that globular clusters can have a significant spread of metal abundance, long before this idea became a hot topic. He published 148 refereed papers, and was a leader in the scientific transformation of the Mount Stromlo Observatory into a modern center for astrophysical research during the 1960s. He served as director of the Observatory for a five-year term from 1986.