Allan Stanley "Bud" Jacobson (June 18, 1932, Chattanooga, Tennessee – May 6, 1997, Altadena, California) was an American astrophysicist, known for his pioneering research in high-resolution gamma-ray spectroscopy.
[8] After spending the academic year 1968–1969 at UCSD as an assistant research physicist working as a team member on the OSO 7 project, Jacobson joined in 1969 the staff of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).
His team developed the High Spectral Resolution Gamma Ray Spectrometer (HSRGS), containing four cryogenic germanium gamma-ray detectors.
[12] At the June 1986 meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) in Ames, Iowa, he presented evidence from the HEAO-3 discoveries supporting the hypothesis of a supermassive black hole at the center of our Milky Way Galaxy.
[1] His Linked Windows Interactive Data System (LinkWinds), developed with Andrew L. Berkin and Martin W. Orton,[14] was the co-winner of NASA's 1986 Software of the Year award.
Jacobson also collaborated with the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Army in research on gamma-ray sensing for military surveillance and in development of several professional wargames.