Real Relativity

After receiving a B.A. degree in physics from U.C. Berkeley (1968) and an M.S. degree from U.C. San Diego (1969), Paul Sommers moved to Austin to study in the Relativity Center under the supervision of Alfred Schild at the University of Texas. He was strongly influenced by Martin Walker and Bob Geroch, and received his Ph.D. in 1973. He then worked for two years at Oxford as a postdoc with Roger Penrose, followed by two years at UNC in Chapel Hill with Jim York. In 1977 he became an assistant professor of mathematics at NC State University. He and his wife (Gayle Nicholson) moved aboard a 31-foot trimaran sailboat in 1980 and spent two years sailing and diving in the Bahamas and western Caribbean. Following that, they moved to Salt Lake City, where he developed an interest in cosmic ray research at the University of Utah. In 1995, he helped to design the Pierre Auger Cosmic Ray Observatory as a founding member of that international collaboration led by Jim Cronin. He became a full professor of physics at Penn State University in 2005 where he served as associate director of the Institute for Gravitation and the Cosmos led by Abhay Ashtekar. His research remained concentrated in the study of the highest energy cosmic rays, and he was co-spokesperson for the Pierre Auger Collaboration 2007-2010. He retired in 2013, and he and Gayle moved to Wilmington NC where they live on the shore of the Intracoastal Waterway overlooking Carolina Beach Inlet. Their daughters, Pacifica and Aleah, live in Boulder, CO.