He helped propel citizen science forward with his astronomy projects and collaborations
By
Hub staff report
/
Published
May 24, 2021
Jan Vincent Vandenberg, a computer scientist and systems architect who was connected to Johns Hopkins University for 30 years, passed away on May 13 after an eight-year battle with colon cancer. He was 48.
Vandenberg is known for helping propel citizen science forward as a key collaborator of Galaxy Zoo, an online project offering unprecedented public access to astronomy images, and as a core member of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey team, working on the word's most ambitious and detailed astronomical survey to date.
"The cosmos has lost a brilliant mind and a kind soul," Vandenberg's longtime friend Phil Tang, a former vice provost for academic services at Johns Hopkins, told