Professor R. Kent Honeycutt received his A.B. in Physics and Mathematics from King College in 1962, his M.S. (Physics) from Vanderbilt University in 1964, and his Ph.D. (Astronomy) from Case-Western University in 1968. He came to IU in 1968 as an Assistant Professor of Astronomy. From 1982 to present, he has served as Director of the Goethe Link Observatories at Indiana University. In 1998, he became the John Hill Professor of Astronomy.
His professional service includes: member of the Board of Directors of Wisconsin, Indiana, Yale, NOAO (WIYN) Observatory from 1990 to present; WIYN Science Advisory Committee (chair 1995-97); member of the board of Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) 1984-91; and member of the Hubble Space Telescope Review Panel, 1991.
His research interests are in the areas of interacting binary stars, accretion disks, astronomical instrumentation, telescope design, stellar photometry and stellar spectroscopy, automation of astronomical observing. He has built and has helped build several major telescope, including some that operate automatically and unattended.
He has authored or co-authored about 175 papers.