Alexander Dalgarno earned a BSc with first-class honors in mathematics from University College London. He stayed there for his graduate studies and switched to physics. After the completion of his Ph.D., he joined Queen’s University Belfast, quickly rising to full professor. In 1967, he accepted a full professorship at Harvard University.

He served as the editor of Astrophysical Journal Letters for nearly 30 years, and he chaired the Harvard astronomy department for five. He also served as the first director and founder of the Institute for Theoretical Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics (ITAMP) in 1988. During his career, he received numerous honors, including the Davisson-Germer Prize in Atomic or Surface Physics from the American Physical Society in 1980, OSA’s William F. Meggers Award in 1986, the American Geophysical Union’s John Adam Fleming Medal in 1995, and the Franklin Institute’s Benjamin Franklin Medal in Physics in 2013.

Dalgarno passed away in 2015.