Pilar Ruiz-Lapuente (born 1964, Barcelona) is an astrophysicist working as a professor at the University of Barcelona. Her work has included research on

type Ia supernovae A Type Ia supernova (read: "type one-A") is a type of supernova that occurs in binary systems (two stars orbiting one another) in which one of the stars is a white dwarf. The other star can be anything from a giant star to an even smaller white ...

. In 2004, she led the team that searched for the companion star to the white dwarf that became supernova SN 1572, observed by Tycho Brahe, among others. Ruiz-Lapuente's research on supernovae contributed to the discovery of the accelerating expansion of the universe.

Career overview

Ruiz-Lapuente completed her degree in Physics at the University of Barcelona, then did her doctoral studies at the University of Barcelona, the

Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics The Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics (MPA) is a research institute located in Garching, just north of Munich, Bavaria, Germany. It is one of many scientific research institutes belonging to the Max Planck Society. The MPA is widely conside ...

, and the

European Southern Observatory The European Organisation for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere, commonly referred to as the European Southern Observatory (ESO), is an intergovernmental organization, intergovernmental research organisation made up of 16 mem ...

. She then went on to become a research fellow at the Center for Astrophysics Harvard & Smithsonian. As of 2012, she was a professor with the Department of Astronomy and Meteorology at the University of Barcelona.

Research on accelerating universe

Ruiz-Lapuente was one of the members of the Supernova Cosmology Project, one of two research teams which made the unexpected co-discovery, in 1998, that the universe was expanding at an accelerating rate. The teams discovered this by studying Type Ia supernovae and posited dark energy as an explanation for this accelerating expansion. She said of her contribution to the work... As a result of this discovery, Ruiz-Lapuente, along with her colleagues on the Supernova Cosmology Project and the co-discoverers on the High-z Supernova Search Team, received the 2007 Gruber Prize in Cosmology and the 2015 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics. The research she contributed to also resulted in the awarding of a Nobel Prize to her team's lead researcher, Saul Perlmutter, which he shared with the High-z Supernova Search Team's directors.

Notable publications

As of 2012, Pilar-Ruiz had authored more than 130 journal articles. These include works published in '' Nature'' and in '' Science''. Some articles include : * Nebular spectra of type IA supernovae as probes for extragalactic distances, reddening, and nucleosynthesis * A possible low-mass type Ia supernova * Tycho Brahe's supernova: light from centuries past * Dark energy, gravitation and supernovae She has also written a book titled "El enigma de la realidad. Las entidades de la física de Aristóteles a Einstein."

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ruiz-Lapuente, Pilar 1964 births Spanish astrophysicists Living people Academic staff of the University of Barcelona 20th-century Spanish scientists Women astronomers Women astrophysicists University of Barcelona alumni Spanish women scientists 20th-century Spanish women