Paul L. Schechter is an astrophysicist and observational cosmologist. He is the William A. M. Burden Professor of Astrophysics at MIT

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...

.

Schechter received his bachelor's degree from Cornell

Cornell University

Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...

 in 1968, and his Ph.D. degree from Caltech

California Institute of Technology

The California Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Pasadena, California, United States. Caltech has six academic divisions with strong emphases on science and engineering...

 in 1975. He held postdoctoral positions at the Institute for Advanced Study

Institute for Advanced Study

The Institute for Advanced Study, located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States, is an independent postgraduate center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry. It was founded in 1930 by Abraham Flexner...

 and the University of Arizona

University of Arizona

The University of Arizona is a land-grant and space-grant public institution of higher education and research located in Tucson, Arizona, United States. The University of Arizona was the first university in the state of Arizona, founded in 1885...

, then went to Harvard

Harvard University

Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

 as an assistant professor. He moved to his present position MIT in 1988. Schechter was elected to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in 2003.

Schechter is known for his work establishing what is now known as the Schechter Luminosity Function

Luminosity function (astronomy)

In astronomy, the luminosity function gives the number of stars or galaxies per luminosity interval. Luminosity functions are used to study the properties of large groups or classes of objects, such as the stars in clusters or the galaxies in the Local Group....

 for galaxies, and for work with William Press

William H. Press

William H. Press is an astrophysicist, theoretical physicist, and computational biologist. He is a member of the United States National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Council on Foreign Relations. Other honors include the 1981 Helen B...

 on what is now termed the Press-Schechter formalism

Press-Schechter formalism

The Press–Schechter formalism is a mathematical model for predicting the number of objects of a certain mass within a given volume of the Universe. It was described in a famous paper by William H...

. He also developed accurate methods for measuring velocity dispersions of galaxies, analyzed the Virgocentric

Virgo Cluster

The Virgo Cluster is a cluster of galaxies whose center is 53.8 ± 0.3 Mly away in the constellation Virgo. Comprising approximately 1300 member galaxies, the cluster forms the heart of the larger Local Supercluster, of which the Local Group is an outlying member...

 infall, and performed precise analyses of gravitational lenses

Gravitational lens

A gravitational lens refers to a distribution of matter between a distant source and an observer, that is capable of bending the light from the source, as it travels towards the observer...

.