Leonard John Celistus Culhane (otherwise known as J. Leonard Culhane) FRS (born 14 October 1937) is an Irish-born British astronomer, former director of the Mullard Space Science Laboratory at University College London.[1]
He commenced his academic career as a lecturer at University College, London (1967–1976) with a short break as a researcher in Lockheed Palo Alto Laboratory, California in 1969, rising to be Reader in Physics from 1976 to 1981 and professor of physics from 1981 to 2006. During that time he was deputy director and then director of the Mullard Space Science Laboratory (1981–2003). On his retirement in 2006 he became emeritus professor of physics.[2]
His interests lay in the fields of space instrumentation, solar physics, X-ray astronomy and EUV/X-ray spectroscopy.[2]
He was chairman of the European Space Sciences Committee from 1998 to 2002.[3]