Adam Guy Riess (born December 16, 1969) is an American astrophysicist and Bloomberg Distinguished Professor at

Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hemisphere. It consi ...

and the

Space Telescope Science Institute The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) is the science operations center for the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), science operations and mission operations center for the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), and science operations center for the ...

. He is known for his research in using supernovae as cosmological probes. Riess shared both the 2006

Shaw Prize in Astronomy The Shaw Prize is an annual award presented by the Shaw Prize Foundation. Established in 2002 in Hong Kong, it honours "individuals who are currently active in their respective fields and who have recently achieved distinguished and signifi ...

and the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics with

Saul Perlmutter Saul Perlmutter (born September 22, 1959) is a U.S. astrophysicist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and a professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a member of both the American Academy of Arts & Sciences ...

and Brian P. Schmidt for providing evidence that the expansion of the universe is accelerating.

Family

Riess was born in

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

, one of three children. He grew up in

Warren, New Jersey Warren Township is a township in Somerset County, New Jersey, United States. The township is a bedroom suburb of New York City in the much larger New York metropolitan area, located within the Raritan Valley region. As of the 2020 United State ...

, where his father (Naval engineer Michael Riess) owned a frozen-foods distribution company, Bistro International, and his mother (Doris Riess) worked as a clinical psychologist. Michael Riess (1931–2007) immigrated to the United States with his parents (journalist, war correspondent and author

Curt Martin Riess Curt Martin Riess (June 21, 1902 – May 13, 1993) was a German journalist and writer. Reiss was born of Jewish-German origins in Wurzburg, Germany, and later fled in 1933 to Paris, France not long after Adolf Hitler was appointed chancellor in 1 ...

and Ilse Posnansky) from Germany on the ship

SS Europa (1928) SS ''Europa'', later SS ''Liberté'', IMO 5607332, was a German ocean liner built for the Norddeutsche Lloyd line (NDL) to work the transatlantic sea route. She and her sister ship, , were the two most advanced, high-speed steam turbine ocean ...

in 1936. Adam Riess has two sisters –

Gail Saltz Dr. Gail Saltz is an American psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, columnist, and television commentator. Saltz is the author of several self-help and psychology books, including ''Anatomy of a Secret Life: The Psychology of Living a Lie'' (2006) and '' ...

, a psychiatrist, and Holly Hagerman, an artist. Riess married Nancy Joy Schondorf in 1998. He is

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

Education

He attended

Watchung Hills Regional High School Watchung Hills Regional High School is a regional comprehensive public high school and school district serving students in portions of Somerset and Morris Counties in New Jersey, United States. Students from Warren Township and from the neig ...

, graduating in the class of 1988. He also attended the prestigious New Jersey Governor's School in the Sciences in 1987. Riess then graduated from

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...

in 1992 where he was a member of the Phi Delta Theta fraternity. He received his PhD from

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

in 1996; it resulted in measurements of over twenty new Type Ia supernovae and a method to utilize Type Ia supernovae as accurate distance indicators by correcting for intervening dust and intrinsic inhomogeneities. Riess's PhD thesis was supervised by Robert Kirshner and William H. Press and won the Robert J. Trumpler Award in 1999 for PhD theses of unusual importance to astronomy.

Research

Riess was a

Miller Fellow The Miller Research Fellows program is the central program of the Adolph C. and Mary Sprague Miller Institute for Basic Research in Science on the University of California Berkeley campus. The program constitutes the support of Research Fellows - ...

at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

from 1996 through 1999, during which period his first seminal paper on the discovery of an accelerating universe was published.Messersmith, Julie
"Nobel laureate Adam Riess named 22nd Bloomberg Distinguished Professor at Johns Hopkins"
''JHU Hub'', Baltimore, 8 July 2016. Retrieved on 13 July 2016. In 1999, he moved to the

and took up his current position at

in 2006. He also sits on the selection committee for the Astronomy award, given under the auspices of the Shaw Prize. In July 2016, Riess was named a Bloomberg Distinguished Professor at

for his accomplishments as an interdisciplinary researcher and excellence in teaching the next generation of scholars. The Bloomberg Distinguished Professorships were established in 2013 by a gift from Michael Bloomberg. Riess jointly led the study with

Brian Schmidt Brian Paul Schmidt (born 24 February 1967) is the Vice-Chancellor of the Australian National University (ANU). He was previously a Distinguished Professor, Australian Research Council Laureate Fellow and astrophysicist at the University's M ...

in 1998 for the High-z Supernova Search Team which first reported evidence that the universe's expansion rate is now accelerating through monitoring of Type Ia supernovae. The team's observations were contrary to the current theory that the expansion of the universe was slowing down; instead, by monitoring the color shifts in the light from supernovae from Earth, they discovered that these billion-year old novae were still accelerating. This result was also found nearly simultaneously by the

Supernova Cosmology Project The Supernova Cosmology Project is one of two research teams that determined the likelihood of an accelerating universe and therefore a positive cosmological constant, using data from the redshift of Type Ia supernovae. The project is headed by S ...

, led by

. The corroborating evidence between the two competing studies led to the acceptance of the

accelerating universe Observations show that the expansion of the universe is accelerating, such that the velocity at which a distant galaxy recedes from the observer is continuously increasing with time. The accelerated expansion of the universe was discovered duri ...

theory, and initiated new research to understand the nature of the universe, such as the existence of

dark energy In physical cosmology and astronomy, dark energy is an unknown form of energy that affects the universe on the largest scales. The first observational evidence for its existence came from measurements of supernovas, which showed that the univ ...

. The discovery of the accelerating universe was named 'Breakthrough of the Year' by ''Science'' magazine in 1998, and Riess was jointly awarded the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics along with Schmidt and Perlmutter for their groundbreaking work. In the book ''

The 4 Percent Universe ''The 4 Percent Universe: Dark Matter, Dark Energy, and the Race to Discover the Rest of Reality'' is a nonfiction book by writer and professor Richard Panek and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt on January 10, 2011. In October 2011, the ...

'', scientific journalist

Richard Panek Richard Panek is an American popular science writer, columnist, and journalist who specializes in the topics of space, the universe, and gravity. He has published several books and has written articles for a number of news outlets and scientific ...

claims that Riess made improper use of the supernova data collected by the Calán/Tololo Survey, publishing them prior to the authors and without their permission. However, coincident publication dates and acknowledgements in one of these publications contradict this claim.

Awards and honors

Riess received the Astronomical Society of the Pacific's Robert J. Trumpler Award in 1999 and

's Bok Prize in 2001. He won the American Astronomical Society's

Helen B. Warner Prize The Helen B. Warner Prize for Astronomy is awarded annually by the American Astronomical Society to a young astronomer (aged less than 36, or within 8 years of the award of their PhD) for a significant contribution to observational or theoretical ...

in 2003 and the Raymond and Beverly

Sackler Prize The Sackler Prize can indicate any of the following three awards established by Raymond Sackler and his wife Beverly Sackler currently bestowed by the Tel Aviv University. Sackler Prize in the Physical Sciences The Raymond and Beverly Sackler Int ...

in 2004 for the discovery of cosmic acceleration. In 2006, he shared the $1 million Shaw Prize in

Astronomy Astronomy () is a natural science that studies celestial objects and phenomena. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and evolution. Objects of interest include planets, moons, stars, nebulae, g ...

with

and Brian P. Schmidt for contributions to the discovery of the acceleration of the universe. Schmidt and all the members of the High-Z Team (as defined by the co-authors of Riess et al. 1998) shared the 2007 Gruber Cosmology Prize, a $500,000 award, with the Supernova Cosmology Project (the set defined by the co-authors of Perlmutter et al. 1999) for their discovery of the accelerating expansion of the universe. Riess was the winner of MacArthur "Genius" Grant in 2008. He was also elected in 2009 to the National Academy of Sciences. Along with Perlmutter and Schmidt, he was awarded the 2011

Nobel Prize in Physics ) , image = Nobel Prize.png , alt = A golden medallion with an embossed image of a bearded man facing left in profile. To the left of the man is the text "ALFR•" then "NOBEL", and on the right, the text (smaller) "NAT•" then " ...

for his contributions to the discovery of the acceleration of the expansion of the universe. Riess, along with Brian P. Schmidt, and the High-Z Supernova Search Team shared in the 2015

Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics The Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics is one of the Breakthrough Prizes, awarded by the Breakthrough Prize Board. Initially named Fundamental Physics Prize, it was founded in July 2012 by Russia-born Israeli entrepreneur, venture cap ...

. In 2012, Riess received the Golden Plate Award of the

American Academy of Achievement The American Academy of Achievement, colloquially known as the Academy of Achievement, is a non-profit educational organization that recognizes some of the highest achieving individuals in diverse fields and gives them the opportunity to meet ...

. In 2020, Riess was made fellow of the American Astronomical Society.

Media appearances

Riess participated on the

NPR National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other ...

radio quiz program '' Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!'' in 2011.

Publications

Riess has more than 87,000 citations in Google Scholar and an h-index of 99. His most cited work, "Observational evidence from supernovae for an accelerating universe and a cosmological constant," has been cited over 20,000 times. Riess has been among the top 1% most cited in the world for subject field and year of publication in the

Thomson Reuters Thomson Reuters Corporation ( ) is a Canadian multinational media conglomerate. The company was founded in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, where it is headquartered at the Bay Adelaide Centre. Thomson Reuters was created by the Thomson Corpora ...

Highly Cited Researchers reports for multiple years, including 2016 and 2020.
Google Scholar citations

Highly cited articles (more than 1900 citations)

* 1998 with V Filippenko, P Challis, A Clocchiatti, A Diercks, et al., ''Observational evidence from supernovae for an accelerating universe and a cosmological constant'', in: ''The Astronomical Journal''. Vol. 116, nº 3; 1009. * 2009 with KN Abazajian, JK Adelman-McCarthy, MA Agüeros, SS Allam, CA Prieto, et al., ''The seventh data release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey'', in: ''The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series''. Vol. 182, nº 2; 543. * 2004 with LG Strolger, J Tonry, S Casertano, HC Ferguson, B Mobasher, et al., ''Type Ia supernova discoveries at z> 1 from the Hubble Space Telescope: Evidence for past deceleration and constraints on dark energy evolution'', in: ''The Astrophysical Journal''. Vol. 607, nº 2; 665. * 2007 with JK Adelman-McCarthy, MA Agüeros, SS Allam, KSJ Anderson, et al., ''The fifth data release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey'', in: ''The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series''. Vol. 172, nº 2; 634. * 2003 with JL Tonry, BP Schmidt, B Barris, P Candia, P Challis, A Clocchiatti, AL Coil, et al., ''Cosmological results from high-z supernovae'', in: ''The Astrophysical Journal''. Vol. 594, nº 1; 1. * 2007 with LG Strolger, S Casertano, HC Ferguson, B Mobasher, B Gold, et al., ''New Hubble space telescope discoveries of type Ia supernovae at z≥ 1: narrowing constraints on the early behavior of dark energy'', in: ''The Astrophysical Journal''. Vol. 659, nº 1; 98. * 1998 with BP Schmidt, NB Suntzeff, MM Phillips, RA Schommer, A Clocchiatti, et al., ''The high-Z supernova search: measuring cosmic deceleration and global curvature of the universe using type Ia supernovae'', in: ''The Astrophysical Journal''. Vol. 507, nº 1; 46.

References

External links

Dark Energy Co-Discoverer Adam Riess Shares Shaw Prize in Astronomy for 2006
*

{{DEFAULTSORT:Riess, Adam 1969 births Living people Nobel laureates in Physics American Nobel laureates Jewish astronomers American cosmologists Johns Hopkins University faculty University of California, Berkeley faculty Harvard University alumni Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumni MacArthur Fellows Jewish American scientists Jewish physicists American people of German descent American people of German-Jewish descent People from Warren Township, New Jersey Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Watchung Hills Regional High School alumni 21st-century American astronomers 20th-century American astronomers MIT Department of Physics alumni Fellows of the American Astronomical Society Albert Einstein Medal recipients Fellows of the American Physical Society