Newswise — The 2015 Gruber Foundation Cosmology Prize recognizes the University of Chicago’s John E. Carlstrom, PhD alumnus Jeremiah P. Ostriker and Princeton colleague Lyman Page for their individual and collective contributions to the study of the universe on the largest scales.
The 2015 prize is divided into two parts: half to a distinguished theorist, and the other half to two exceptional experimentalists. The theorist is Jeremiah P. Ostriker, PhD’64, a professor emeritus at Princeton University, now teaching at Columbia University. Ostriker, whose graduate school mentor was UChicago Nobel laureate Subramanian Chandrasekhar, is being honored for his groundbreaking body of work over a five-decade career.
Carlstrom, the S. Chandrasekhar Distinguished Service Professor in Astronomy & Astrophysics, and Page, of Princeton, have each overseen ground-based experiments providing a wealth of information about the origins and evolution of the universe. Carlstrom has worked extensively to study the cosmic microwave background, the relic radiation from the infancy of the universe, using the South Pole Telescope and other instruments.
“Together the theoretical and experimental work of these three scientists has contributed to, clarified, and advanced today’s standard cosmological model,” said the Gruber Foundation news release that announced this year’s cosmology prize.
Ostriker will receive half of the $500,000 award, while Carlstrom and Page will divide the other half. All three also will receive a gold medal at the XXIX General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union in Honolulu on Aug. 3.
Previous recipients of the Gruber Prize include Wendy Freedman, the University Professor in Astronomy & Astrophysics. Freedman received the prize in 2009 “for the definitive measurement of the rate of expansion of the universe, Hubble’s Constant.” One of the foremost awards in the field of cosmology, the prize honors "a leading cosmologist, astronomer, astrophysicist or scientific philosopher for theoretical, analytical, conceptual or observational discoveries leading to fundamental advances in our understanding of the universe,” according to the Gruber Foundation.
Stephan Meyer, professor in astronomy & astrophysics, received a share of the prize in 2006 as a member of the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) Team “for studies confirming that our universe was born in a hot Big Bang.” He repeated the feat in 2012 as a member of the Wilkinson Microwave Anistropy Probe which was honored for “exquisite measurements of anisotropies in the relic radiation from the Big Bang—the Cosmic Microwave Background.”
For more information, see http://gruber.yale.edu/cosmology/press/2015-gruber-cosmology-press-release.
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