He is the Samuel T. and Fern Yanagisawa Regents Professor of Astronomy Emeritus at the University of Texas at Austin.
Wheeler graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1965 with a BS in physics.
[5] Based on the "Astronomy Bizarre" course he taught for non-majors, Wheeler published Cosmic Catastrophes: Supernovae, Gamma-ray Bursts, and Adventures in Hyperspace in 2000.
The second edition, Cosmic Catastrophes: Exploding Stars, Black Holes, and Mapping the Universe, was published in 2007.
[2][6] In 2019 he and David Branch received the Chambliss Astronomical Writing Award for their textbook Supernova Explosions.