Geoff Marcy has resigned from the University of California, Berkeley, after an outcry from the astronomy community following revelations that he had repeatedly violated the institution’s sexual harassment policy.

Marcy is one of the world’s leading exoplanet hunters, and one of the principal investigators on NASA’s Kepler space telescope, which is responsible for the discovery of most of the nearly 2000 exoplanets known today. He has been tipped for a Nobel prize for his work in the field.

On Friday, Buzzfeed News revealed allegations from four women that Marcy had engaged in inappropriate physical behaviour between 2001 and 2010, sparking an investigation at Berkeley, which told Marcy he would be suspended or dismissed should it happen again.


Astronomers at Berkeley and elsewhere reacted with outrage. An open letter from 22 members of the Berkeley faculty called on the university to reconsider its position, while more than 2700 people have signed a petition in support of his victims.

Now Marcy had resigned of his own accord. In a statement released yesterday, Berkeley chancellor Nicholas Dirks and executive vice chancellor Claude Steele expressed their sympathy for those who had been harassed. “Professor Marcy’s conduct, as determined by the investigation, was contemptible and inexcusable,” they said.

But the pair also pointed out their options for disciplining Marcy were limited by University of California policy, and would have involved a lengthy hearing, subject to a three-year statute of limitations.

Marcy has also resigned as principal investigator for the Breakthrough Listen project, part of a $100 million initiative announced earlier this year to search for signals from alien civilisations.

Image credit: Stuart C. Wilson/Getty Images for Breakthrough Initiatives