Awards
2017 Highly Cited Researcher
Simon Lilly has been recognized by the Web of Science/Clarivate Analytics as a 2017 external pageHighly Cited Researcher (HCR)call_made. The HCR represent the top 1% of cited scientists group across different science and engineering disciplines. The 2017 list is based on papers published 2005-2015, and therefore reflects the research work that Simon undertook after moving to ETH in 2002. This year there are a total of eleven HCR working at ETH Zurich (primary affiliation) and Simon is the only HCR astrophysicist in Switzerland in the 2017 list.
Carl Sagan Memorial Award 2017
Simon Lilly shared in the 2017 Carl Sagan Memorial Award of the American Astronautical Society. This is awarded to an individual or group for "demonstrated leadership in research or policies advancing exploration of the cosmos". The award was made to the AURA "HST and Beyond Committee" for their scientific definition in the mid-90's of what was to become the James Webb Space Telescope, the $10 billion flagship space astrophysics mission of NASA that will be launched in 2019 after a 25 year development project.
EAS MERAC Prize 2016
Former PhD student Yingjie Peng, now an Assistant Professor at the Kavli Institute in Beijing, has been awarded the 2016 MERAC Prize for the best PhD thesis in observational astrophysics by the European Astronomical Society. This award is made every two years. Yingjie's thesis developed a new analytic formalism for considering the evolution of the population of galaxies over cosmic time, especially in terms of the quenching of star-formation in galaxies.
Professor Simon Lilly Herschel Medal 2017
The Royal Astronomical Society (UK) has awarded the 2017 Herschel Medal to Professor Simon Lilly.
The Herschel Medal is awarded for "investigations of outstanding merit in observational astrophysics."
Simon Lilly receives the award for the discovery of the large change in the rate at which the Universe has been forming stars over the last 10 billion years. In the so-called 'Canada-France Redshift Survey', which was undertaken with colleagues in France and Canada between 1992 and 1996, Lilly (then at the University of Toronto) carried out the first systematic study of 'normal' galaxies that were sufficiently distant that they provide information about the Universe when it was less than a half of its current age of 14 billion years. These galaxies are 'normal' in the sense that they are similar to the Milky Way, the galaxy in which the Sun is found. Based on the data gathered in this survey, Lilly and his co-workers estimated the rate at which the Universe as a whole must be forming new stars and discovered that this rate was about ten times higher, at that earlier time, than it is now.
Understanding why the birth-rate of new stars has changed so dramatically with cosmic time and why the Universe appears to be 'running out of steam' in its ability to make new stars, is now a major focus of astrophysics and cosmology. These questions also guide the activities in Lilly's group at ETH since he moved to Zurich in 2002.
Links
Professor Simon Lilly FRS 2014
It has been announced in London that Professor Simon Lilly has been elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS).
The Royal Society, whose full name is the Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, was chartered in 1660 and is the oldest scientific academy in the world. It has the purpose of recognizing, promoting, and supporting excellence in science and of encouraging the development and use of science for the benefit of humanity.
Fellows are elected for life through a peer review process on the basis of excellence in science. There are currently some 1450 Fellows and Foreign Members, including 80 Nobel Prize Winners. They span all disciplines of Science, Engineering and Technology, and on average a single astrophysicist is granted this honour each year.
Read more about external pageFellows of the Royal Societycall_made and the external pagenewly elected FRS for 2014call_made.
Schläfli Prize 2014
Julien Carron has been awarded the 2014 A.F. Schlaefli Prize by the Swiss Academy of Sciences (SCNAT). Julien was a PhD student at our Institute from 2009-2012 and wrote an outstanding PhD thesis. It it this work that has been recognized by the Schlaefli Prize.
The Schlaefli Prize is awarded annually to young scientists of Swiss nationality. Each year it is in a different discipline - this year it was the turn of Astronomy and Astrophysics. Nominees were to have defended their PhD theses after January 1, 2011. Further information can be found external pageherecall_made