SETI Proponent: Paul Shuch by Navdeep Singh
Dr. H. Paul Shuch was born on 23rd May 1946 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. He is more famously known as Dr. SETI. SETI stands for Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence. Dr Paul Shuch is an American scientist and engineer and has highly contributed in the field of SETI Science. He is known for his coordination with the radio amateurs for the achievement of various goals of SETI.
Dr Paul Shuch is an eminent personality and is highly multi talented. He is an aerospace engineer by qualification. He had a significant contribution in the creation of the world's first commercial satellite receiver. Paul Shuch has also served as a flight instructor in the Air Force at the time of the Vietnam War. He has also served as an eminent educationist in various universities and campuses including the University of California in the United States of America.
In his early life Dr. Paul did his graduation in the field of Information Technology from the reputed San Jose State University. After Graduation he undertook Ph.D. in engineering from the University of California, Berkeley, USA. After the completion of his defense services he served as an engineer in some of the Silicon Valley aerospace companies. After working in these aerospace companies Shuch finally landed to his eminent academic career.
Nicholas Marshall was the person who told Dr H. Paul Shuch about SETI. He was an engineer from Hungary working on a project named OSCAR with Dr. Shush. They were the builders of the first non-Government Satellite of the world, under this project. Nicholas Marshall also introduced Dr. H. Paul Shuch to Dr. Bernard M. Oliver who was a longtime SETI proponent and then Engineering vice-president at the Hewlett-Packard. Oliver in turn introduced Dr. Paul to Frank Drake and Philip Morrison. They were the SETI pioneers and encouraged the interest and involvement of Dr. Paul in the development of SETI radio telescope.
During the phase of his graduate school at the University of California, Berkeley, Paul became acquainted with many of the members of the NASA SETI team. These SETI pioneers had been affiliated with the university, either as faculty member, postdoctoral researcher or student. The presence of such SETI pioneers at the university created a healthy environment for SETI at the campus which further provoked Dr, Paul to be a part of the SETI research. Another source of inspiration for Shuch was his professor Jack Welch, who was a prominent radio astronomer and a member of National Academy of Science. Apart from Dr. Paul Shuch, Dan Werthimer who later became the chief scientist of SETI@home and distributed computing experiment was also a student of Jack Welch.
When the SETI program led by NASA was shut down by the United States Congress in year 1993, an industrialist from New Jersey named Richard Factor established a non-profit and membership based SETI organization and named it as SETI League. Dr. H. Paul Shuch was made to lead this organization as the first Executive Director, a position that he still holds.
