Robert W. Wilson is a Senior Scientist at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory of the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge Massachusetts. He is technical leader of the Sub-Millimeter Array, a recently completed 8-element synthesis radio telescope.

Dr. Wilson received a B.A. from Rice University in 1957 and a Ph.D. from the Caltech in 1962. After a one year postdoc at the Caltech, he joined Bell Laboratories. From 1977 until 1994 Dr. Wilson was Head of the Radio Physics Research Dept. in Holmdel, NJ.

His early work was in the fields of Galactic radio astronomy and precision measurement of radio source strengths. He was a co-discoverer in 1964 of the 3K cosmic background radiation which originated in the Big Bang and for which he shared the 1978 Nobel Prize in Physics. In 1970 he and his co-workers discovered a number of interstellar molecules including Carbon Monoxide in the 2-3 mm band. This opened up the study of molecular clouds and star forming regions.

He is a member of the American Astronomical Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the International Astronomical Union, the International Union of Radio Science, the American Physical Society, the National Academy of Sciences.