Professor Pedro Ferreira has been awarded the Royal Astronomical Society’s Eddington Medal 2024 for investigations of outstanding merit in theoretical astrophysics. The award recognises Professor Ferreira’s ground-breaking work using observations of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation to establish Lambda Cold Dark Matter as the basic cosmological model and to test non-standard theories of gravity.
Professor Ferreira has worked from many angles to investigate the features of Lambda Cold Dark Matter model that lie beyond our current understanding of physics. With a persistent problem being the physical nature of Lambda, Professor Ferreira’s work is widely recognised as seminal in trying to understand the role of scalar fields. He has also done ground-breaking work in the use of the CMB observations and other cosmological observations to test non-standard theories of gravity. He has also made major theoretical advances in other fields, including the use of neutron star mergers to test theories of gravity. Besides his personal research, he has made major contributions to theoretical cosmology as a discipline, mentoring an extraordinary number of the new leaders in the field.
‘I am really delighted to receive this award, it is a great honour to be appreciated by my peers,’ comments Professor Ferreira. ‘Most of my work has been done at Oxford, in the wonderful Physics Department where I am blessed to have such outstanding colleagues. I have worked with junior scientists throughout my career and they have been the highlight of my academic life.’
Professor Ian Shipsey is Head of Department: ‘Pedro is a recognised global authority in his field and he is a great asset to our department. Congratulations on this richly deserved award.’