Submitted by A.S. Wilson on Mon, 27/02/2023 - 12:00
World-leading cosmologist Professor Hiranya Peiris has been appointed Professor of Astrophysics (1909) at the Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge.
Professor Peiris's research covers a wide range of disciplines within astrophysics and cosmology, including the study of the cosmic microwave background, galaxy evolution and stellar dynamics, as well as leading interdisciplinary collaborations at the interface of cosmology with particle physics and condensed matter physics.
She is a builder of the Dark Energy Science Collaboration of the Legacy Survey of Space and Time. This is a large galaxy survey to be conducted at the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, with the promise of yielding deep insights into the evolution of the Universe and its underlying physics.
Professor Peiris has won a number of national and international prizes and medals for her work, including:
The 2012 Gruber Cosmology Prize (awarded to the WMAP team, including Professor Peiris) for their "exquisite measurements of anisotropies in the relic radiation from the Big Bang—the Cosmic Microwave Background". Professor Peiris led work which for the first time linked theoretical predictions of cosmic inflation (the rapid expansion of the Universe soon after the Big Bang) with observational data.
The 2018 Institute of Physics Fred Hoyle Medal and Prize, for "her leading contributions to understanding the origin and evolution of cosmic structure, by pioneering an interdisciplinary approach that combines theoretical, statistical and observational cosmology, astrophysics, numerical relativity and theoretical physics."
The 2021 Eddington Medal of the Royal Astronomical society, for “her contributions to cosmology, from fundamental theoretical ideas through the design of advanced analysis methods to the analysis of observational data”.
Professor Cathie Clarke, co-Director of the Institute of Astronomy said "We are tremendously excited by the prospect of welcoming Hiranya to Cambridge and by the benefits that her ambitious interdisciplinary programmes will bring to the Institute of Astronomy. "
