Joseph (Joe) Dolan was born on September 17, 1939, in Rochester, New York. He graduated from St. Bonaventure University and then earned his PhD in astrophysics from Harvard University. After graduation, Joe was a Senior Scientist from 1966-1968 at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
After that, he was an Assistant Professor of Astronomy at Case University (now Case Western) in Cleveland, Ohio from 1968-1975. He then joined the civil service at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, in Greenbelt, Maryland as a Senior Resident Research Associate in 1975, and was promoted to Astrophysicist in 1977.
Joe was a Visiting Professor in the Astronomy Department during the 1997-1998 and the 2001-2002 academic years. Following his retirement from the civil service in 2003, Joe relocated to San Diego permanently and became an Adjunct Faculty in the Astronomy Department.
He taught some of our General Education courses (ASTR 101, Principles of Astronomy and ASTR 301, Cosmology and Gravitational Collapse), and graduate-level seminar course (ASTR 596). He was also the mentor two Senior Thesis projects (ASTR 498A,B), and four students in our Research Experiences for Undergraduate (REU) program between 2009 and 2012.
After he stepped back from teaching in 2014 Joe remained an active member of the department for the next 11 years, attending talks and department functions, and making frequent visits to the Faculty-Staff Club.