Tom Geballe, astronomer (Hilo, HI) obtained a PhD in physics in 1974 under Prof. Charles Townes at U.C. Berkeley. Following postdoctoral fellowships at Berkeley and Leiden, and a Carnegie Fellowship at Hale Observatories in Pasadena, he became a staff astronomer at the United Kingdom Infrared Telescope in 1981. He was Astronomer-in-charge, Associate Director, and Head of Operations at UKIRT from 1987 until 1998, when he joined Gemini. Among his research interests are the Galactic center, the late stages of stellar evolution, H3+ as a probe of interstellar gas, the composition of interstellar dust, the surfaces, atmospheres, and aurorae of planets and moons, and brown dwarfs.