Andrew Lawrence is a British astrophysicist (born 23 April 1954 ). He is Regius Professor of Astronomy at the

University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh ( sco, University o Edinburgh, gd, Oilthigh Dhùn Èideann; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in post-nominals) is a public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Granted a royal charter by King James VI in 15 ...

based at the

Royal Observatory, Edinburgh The Royal Observatory, Edinburgh (ROE) is an astronomical institution located on Blackford Hill in Edinburgh. The site is owned by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC). The ROE comprises the UK Astronomy Technology Centre (UK&nbs ...

Education and Career

Lawrence was born 23 April 1954 in

Margate Margate is a seaside resort, seaside town on the north coast of Kent in south-east England. The town is estimated to be 1.5 miles long, north-east of Canterbury and includes Cliftonville, Garlinge, Palm Bay, UK, Palm Bay and Westbrook, Kent, ...

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

, to Jack Lawrence and Louisa Lawrence (nee Louisa Sandison). He attende
Chatham House Grammar School
and then studied Astrophysics at the University of Edinburgh. He undertook postgraduate research at th
Department of Physics

University of Leicester , mottoeng = So that they may have life , established = , type = public research university , endowment = £20.0 million , budget = £326 million , chancellor = David Willetts , vice_chancellor = Nishan Canagarajah , head_labe ...

, supervised by

Ken Pounds Kenneth Alwyne Pounds, CBE, FRS (born 17 November 1934) is Emeritus Professor of physics at the University of Leicester. Early life He was born in Bradford, Yorkshire, where he went to Salt Grammar School (now Titus Salt School in Baildon). He ...

. He completed his PhD in 1980, with a doctoral thesis entitled “X-ray observations of Active Galaxies”. He then worked at the Centre for Space Research,

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

; the

Royal Greenwich Observatory The Royal Observatory, Greenwich (ROG; known as the Old Royal Observatory from 1957 to 1998, when the working Royal Greenwich Observatory, RGO, temporarily moved south from Greenwich to Herstmonceux) is an observatory situated on a hill in G ...

, during its incarnation at

Herstmonceux Herstmonceux ( , ; ) is a village and civil parish in the Wealden District of East Sussex, England, which includes Herstmonceux Castle. The Herstmonceux Medieval Festival is held annually in August. History The name comes from Anglo-Saxon ...

East Sussex East Sussex is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South East England on the English Channel coast. It is bordered by Kent to the north and east, West Sussex to the west, and Surrey to the north-west. The largest settlement in East Su ...

; the School of Mathematical Sciences and then the Department of Physics,

Queen Mary University of London , mottoeng = With united powers , established = 1785 – The London Hospital Medical College1843 – St Bartholomew's Hospital Medical College1882 – Westfield College1887 – East London College/Queen Mary College , type = Public researc ...

; and in 1994 was appointed to the Regius Professor of Astronomy at the

. In 2008-9 he had a sabbatical year at the

Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology The Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology (KIPAC) is an independent joint laboratory of Stanford University and the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, founded in 2003 by a gift by Fred Kavli and The Kavli Foundation. It is h ...

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

Research

Lawrence’s primary research has been in the field of

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 ...

s and

Active Galactic Nuclei An active galactic nucleus (AGN) is a compact region at the center of a galaxy that has a much-higher-than-normal luminosity over at least some portion of the electromagnetic spectrum with characteristics indicating that the luminosity is not prod ...

, but he has also worked extensively in Survey Astronomy, creating th
Wide Field Astronomy Unit
in 1999. He was the Principal Investigator for the

UKIRT Infrared Deep Sky Survey The UKIRT Infrared Deep Sky Survey or UKIDSS is an astronomical survey conducted using the WFCAM wide field camera on the United Kingdom Infrared Telescope on Mauna Kea in Hawaii. Survey observations were commenced in 2005. UKIDSS consists of f ...

(UKIDSS), which received the Group Award of the Royal Astronomical Society in 2012. He is one of the leaders of the global Virtual Observatory initiative and a founder and past chair of the

International Virtual Observatory Alliance The International Virtual Observatory Alliance or IVOA is a worldwide scientific organisation formed in June 2002. Its mission is to facilitate international coordination and collaboration necessary for enabling global and integrated access to data ...

Publications

As of 2019, Lawrence had published over 300 scientific publications and had an h-index of 73. He has also published three books: �
Losing The Sky
�� about sky pollution by satellites, and two academic textbooks, �
Probability in Physics
��, and �
Astronomical Measurement
��, both with

Springer Springer or springers may refer to: Publishers * Springer Science+Business Media, aka Springer International Publishing, a worldwide publishing group founded in 1842 in Germany formerly known as Springer-Verlag. ** Springer Nature, a multinationa ...

. He has also published a short historical/popular booklet on the life and achievements of

Charles Piazzi Smyth Charles Piazzi Smyth (3 January 1819 – 21 February 1900) was an Italian-born British astronomer who was Astronomer Royal for Scotland from 1846 to 1888; he is known for many innovations in astronomy and, along with his wife Jessica Duncan ...

, the second

Astronomer Royal for Scotland Astronomer Royal for Scotland was the title of the director of the Royal Observatory, Edinburgh until 1995. It has since been an honorary title. Astronomers Royal for Scotland See also * Edinburgh Astronomical Institution * City Observatory * R ...

Outreach and Arts

Lawrence teaches on the

Massive open online course A massive open online course (MOOC ) or an open online course is an online course aimed at unlimited participation and open access via the Web. In addition to traditional course materials, such as filmed lectures, readings, and problem sets, m ...

(MOOC) at

Coursera Coursera Inc. () is a U.S.-based massive open online course provider founded in 2012 by Stanford University computer science professors Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller. Coursera works with universities and other organizations to offer online courses, ...

on ''AstroTech: The Science and Technology behind Astronomical Discovery''. He has been involved in a number of Arts-science collaborations, notably with New York compose
Matt Giannotti
and with a Spanish film maker on the documentary �

��.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lawrence, Andrew British astrophysicists Living people Academics of the University of Edinburgh Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh People from Margate 1954 births