James Scott Dunlop is a Scottish astronomer and academic. He is Professor of

Extragalactic Astronomy Extragalactic astronomy is the branch of astronomy concerned with objects outside the Milky Way galaxy. In other words, it is the study of all astronomical objects which are not covered by galactic astronomy. The closest objects in extragalactic ...

at the Institute for Astronomy, an institute within the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Edinburgh.

Education and early life

Dunlop was born and raised on the Clyde coast. He studied physics at the University of Dundee, before moving to the University of Edinburgh where he was awarded a PhD in

astrophysics Astrophysics is a science that employs the methods and principles of physics and chemistry in the study of astronomical objects and phenomena. As one of the founders of the discipline said, Astrophysics "seeks to ascertain the nature of the h ...

in 1988 for research on

redshift In physics, a redshift is an increase in the wavelength, and corresponding decrease in the frequency and photon energy, of electromagnetic radiation (such as light). The opposite change, a decrease in wavelength and simultaneous increase in f ...

in radio galaxies and

quasar A quasar is an extremely Luminosity, luminous active galactic nucleus (AGN). It is pronounced , and sometimes known as a quasi-stellar object, abbreviated QSO. This emission from a galaxy nucleus is powered by a supermassive black hole with a m ...

Career and research

After seven years working in England (where he helped establish the astrophysics group at

Liverpool John Moores University , mottoeng = Fortune favours the bold , established = 1823 – Liverpool Mechanics' School of Arts1992 – Liverpool John Moores University , type = Public , endowment = , coor ...

) he returned to Edinburgh and has worked at the Royal Observatory, Edinburgh ever since, apart from two periods in Vancouver. From 2004-2008 and 2013-2019 he was Head of the University of Edinburgh's Institute for Astronomy (IfA), and in 2019 he became Head of Edinburgh's School of Physics & Astronomy. Dunlop is an observational cosmologist who uses the world's largest telescopes (including telescopes in space such as the Hubble Space Telescope) to study the chronology of the universe back to the formation and birth of the first

galaxies A galaxy is a system of stars, stellar remnants, interstellar gas, dust, dark matter, bound together by gravity. The word is derived from the Greek ' (), literally 'milky', a reference to the Milky Way galaxy that contains the Solar System. ...

. His research has been funded by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), a

Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award The Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award was an award made by the Royal Society from 2000 to 2020. It was administered by the Royal Society and jointly funded by the Wolfson Foundation and the UK Office of Science and Technology, to provide ...

and the

European Research Council The European Research Council (ERC) is a public body for funding of scientific and technological research conducted within the European Union (EU). Established by the European Commission in 2007, the ERC is composed of an independent Scientific ...

. His doctoral students have included Rebecca Bowler, Victoria Bruce, Maciej Koprowski, Henry Pearce, Alexander Rogers and Anita Schael.

Awards and honours

Dunlop was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2016, One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from the royalsociety.org website where: a Fellow of the Institute of Physics (FInstP), and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE) in 2007. He received the

George Darwin Lectureship The George Darwin Lectureship is an award granted by the Royal Astronomical Society to a 'distinguished and eloquent speaker' on the subject of Astronomy including astrochemistry, astrobiology and astroparticle physics. The award is named after ...

in 2014 and the

Herschel Medal The Herschel Medal is awarded by the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) for "investigations of outstanding merit in observational astrophysics". It is awarded for a single piece of work so that younger scientists can be candidates for the award. It ...

in 2016, both from the Royal Astronomical Society.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dunlop, James Scott Living people Fellows of the Royal Society Fellows of the Institute of Physics Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh Academics of the University of Edinburgh Academics of Liverpool John Moores University British astrophysicists Scottish astronomers Alumni of the University of Dundee Alumni of the University of Edinburgh Place of birth missing (living people) Year of birth missing (living people)