Dr. John C. Mather is Senior Project Scientist for the James Webb Space Telescope at Goddard Space Flight Center, and Chief Scientist of the Science Mission Directorate of NASA Headquarters. His research centers on infrared astronomy and cosmology. He led the proposal for the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) and was the Project Scientist, as well as the Principal Investigator for the Far IR Absolute Spectrophotometer (FIRAS) on COBE. He showed that the cosmic microwave background radiation has a blackbody spectrum within 50 ppm, confirming the Big Bang theory. His awards include the Nobel Prize in Physics (2006) with George Smoot.

He received his B.A. from Swarthmore College with highest honors in physics in 1968, and his Ph.D. in physics from the University of California at Berkeley in 1974. His doctoral advisor was Paul Richards, and his thesis led directly to the COBE satellite.