William P. Blair

William P. Blair is an Astrophysicist and Research Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at The Johns Hopkins University . Dr. Blair's main scientific interests lie in the areas of gaseous nebulae and the interstellar medium. In particular, he studies supernova remnants and shock waves in a wide variety of astrophysical situations, using techniques as diverse as ground-based optical imaging and spectroscopy, space-based optical and ultraviolet spectroscopy, and infrared and X-ray observations. Dr. Blair has over 320 publications, primarily technical refereed research papers and conference proceedings contributions.

From 2000 - 2009, Dr. Blair was the Chief of Observatory Operations for the Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer (FUSE) mission, which was a NASA-funded space telescope operated from Johns Hopkins. The FUSE satellite was launched June 24, 1999, and operated until October 18, 2007, when it was shut down due to hardware failures. In 2002 he was appointed as a FUSE Co-Investigator by NASA, and was made Deputy Principal Investigator of the project at JHU.

Prior to joining the FUSE project in 1996, Dr. Blair was Deputy Project Scientist for Mission Planning and Operations for the Hopkins Ultraviolet Telescope project. Dr. Blair was also a member of the Instrument Definition Team for the Faint Object Spectrograph, an original instrument on the Hubble Space Telescope. He has been at Johns Hopkins since 1984, and was involved in the mission planning activities for the Astro-1 space shuttle mission in 1990 and the Astro-2 mission in March 1995.

From 2009 to 2023, Dr. Blair worked on ground system development activities for the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) project, becoming the Project Scientist for User Support in 2017. JWST launched successfully on Christmas day in 2020.

In addition to his research and technical duties, Dr. Blair has always maintained an active interest in education, public outreach, and communicating science to the public. He was heavily involved in outreach efforts for HUT and FUSE, and he still presents numerous talks year to school audiences and public groups, running the gamut from astronomy and telescopes to climate change and global warming.

Dr. Blair obtained a B.A. in 1975 from Olivet College (now the University of Olivet) in Olivet, Michigan, majoring in Physics and Mathematics. He obtained an M.S. (1977) and Ph.D. (1981) in Astronomy from the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor), getting his degree under the supervision of Dr. Robert P. Kirshner. After three years as an Astrophysicist at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Dr. Blair came to Johns Hopkins in 1984 where he has been ever since.

In May 1998, Dr. Blair was honored as a Distinguished Alumnus by his Alma Mater, Olivet College. In 2013, he was recognized as a Distinguished Alumnus of John Glenn High School in Westland, Michigan, where he gave the graduation address. He has presented invited review talks on supernova remnants at international conferences in the UK, China, Spain, Italy, and many conferences about the country.

Dr. Blair is married, and he and his wife, Jean, have two grown children.

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Last updated: June 2026.