Baron Martin Rees
Baron Martin Rees, Ph.D.,
OM, FRS
is author of
Our Final Hour: A Scientist’s Warning and
On the Future: Prospects for Humanity.
He is also
a Fellow of Trinity College and Emeritus Professor of Cosmology and
Astrophysics at the University of Cambridge. He holds the honorary title
of Astronomer Royal and also Visiting Professor at Imperial College
London and at Leicester University.
He has received honorary degrees from a number of universities including
Sussex, Uppsala, Toronto, Durham, Oxford, London, Yale, Greenwich, Melbourne,
and Sydney.
After studying at the University of
Cambridge, Martin held post-doctoral positions in the UK and the USA, before
becoming a professor at Sussex University. In 1973, he became a fellow
of King’s College and Plumian Professor of Astronomy and Experimental
Philosophy at Cambridge (continuing in the latter post until 1991) and
served for ten years as director of Cambridge’s Institute of Astronomy.
From 1992 to 2003 he was a Royal Society Research Professor, and then
from 2004 to 2012, Master of Trinity College. In 2005 he was appointed
to the House of Barons, and he was President of the Royal Society from 2005
to 2010.
He is a foreign associate of the National Academy of Sciences, the
American Philosophical Society, and the American Academy of Arts and
Sciences, and is an honorary member of the Russian Academy of Sciences,
the Pontifical Academy, and several other foreign academies. His awards
include the
Lifeboat Foundation Guardian Award, the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society, the Balzan
International Prize, the Bruce Medal of the Astronomical Society of the
Pacific, the Heineman Prize for Astrophysics (AAS/AIP), the Bower Award
for Science of the Franklin Institute, the Cosmology Prize of the Peter
Gruber Foundation, the Albert Einstein World Award of Science,
the Crafoord Prize (Royal Swedish Academy), the Templeton Prize, and
the Isaac Newton Medal.
Asteroid 4587 Rees is named after him.
Martin has been president of the
British Association for the Advancement of Science (1994–95) and the
Royal Astronomical Society (1992–94) and a trustee of the British
Museum, NESTA, the Kennedy Memorial Trust, the National Museum of
Science and Industry, and the Institute for Public Policy Research. He is
currently on the Board of the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study,
the Cambridge Gates Trust, and has served on many bodies connected with
education, space research, arms control, and international collaboration
in science.
He is the author or coauthor of more than 500 research papers, mainly on
astrophysics and cosmology, as well as eight books (six for general
readership), and numerous magazine and newspaper articles on scientific
and general subjects. He has broadcast and lectured widely and held
various visiting professorships, etc.
Martin’s books include
Just Six Numbers: The Deep Forces That Shape The Universe,
From Here to Infinity: A Vision for the Future of Science,
Before The Beginning: Our Universe And Others,
Gravity’s Fatal Attraction: Black Holes in the Universe,
Our Cosmic Habitat,
Universe: The Definitive Visual Guide,
Cosmic Coincidences: Dark Matter, Mankind, and Anthropic Cosmology,
and
New Perspectives in Astrophysical Cosmology.
His main current research interests are:
- (i) High energy astrophysics — especially gamma ray bursts, galactic nuclei, black hole formation, and radiative processes (including gravitational waves).
- (ii) Cosmic structure formation — especially the early generation of stars and galaxies that formed at high redshifts at the end of the cosmic “dark age”.
- (iii) General cosmological issues.
