Lord Martin Rees

Astronomer Royal at Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge

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Astronomer Royal, Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge
Former President of the Royal Society (2005 to 2010)

Martin Rees is 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 served for ten years as director of Cambridge's Institute of Astronomy and he was a Royal Society Professor from 1992 to 2003.

His current research relates to high energy astrophysics and cosmic structure formation. He is a foreign associate of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, 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 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 Einstein Award of the World Cultural Council and the Crafoord Prize (Royal Swedish Academy).

Lord Rees 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 and the Kennedy Memorial Trust. He is currently on the Board of Trustees of the National Museum of Science and Industry, the Institute for Public Policy Research, and the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study, and has served on many bodies connected with education, space research, arms control and international collaboration in science.

In 2005 he was appointed to the House of Lords and he was President of the Royal Society between 2005 and 2010.

  • In news articles

    What can Cambridge do about climate change?

    In our final seminar of the 2016 Climate Change series, we heard from a panel of experts on what Cambridge could do to drive progress in sustainable living and combatting climate change.

  • In news articles

    Sustainable Humanity, Sustainable Environment, Our Responsibility

    The penultimate session of the Climate and Sustainability in Multiple Dimensions seminar series saw talks from Professor Sir Partha Dasgupta, Professor Charles Kennel and Lord Martin Rees on the relationship between humanity and nature, and its implications for sustainability.

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  • 30 April 2022

    Leave space missions to billionaires and robots, says astronomer royal

  • 29 December 2019

    Be wary of Elon Musk despoiling the ‘vault of heaven’ | Martin Rees

  • 18 August 2019

    Martin Rees: ‘Climate change is a doddle compared with terraforming Mars’