The Prix Georges Lemaître is an award created in 1995, in celebration of the centenary of the birth in 1894 of
Georges Lemaître
Georges Henri Joseph Édouard Lemaître ( ; ; 17 July 1894 – 20 June 1966) was a Belgian Catholic priest, theoretical physicist, and mathematician who made major contributions to cosmology and astrophysics. He was the first to argue that the ...
. The ''Association des Anciens et Amis de l'Université catholique de Louvain'' (Association of the Alumni and Friends of the
Université catholique de Louvain
UCLouvain (or Université catholique de Louvain , French for Catholic University of Louvain, officially in English the University of Louvain) is Belgium's largest French-speaking university and one of the oldest in Europe (originally establishe ...
) initiated the award,
as well as the ''Fondation Georges Lemaître'' (Georges Lemaître Foundation). The prize, endowed with 25,000
euro
The euro (currency symbol, symbol: euro sign, €; ISO 4217, currency code: EUR) is the official currency of 20 of the Member state of the European Union, member states of the European Union. This group of states is officially known as the ...
s as of 2003, is awarded every two years
to a scientist who has made a remarkable contribution to ''développement et à la diffusion des connaissances dans les domaines de la cosmologie, de l'astronomie, de l'astrophysique, de la géophysique, ou de la recherche spatiale''
[ (development and dissemination of knowledge in the fields of cosmology, astronomy, astrophysics, geophysics, or space science). The winner is chosen by an international jury of scientists, chaired by the rector of the Université catholique de Louvain.
]
List of recipients
* 1995 — Philip James Edwin Peebles
Phillip James Edwin Peebles (born April 25, 1935) is a Canadian-American astrophysicist, astronomer, and theoretical cosmologist who was Albert Einstein Professor in Science, emeritus, at Princeton University. He is widely regarded as one o ...
, astrophysicist and cosmologist
* 1997 — Jean-Claude Duplessy, geochemist and climatologist
* 1999 — Jean-Pierre Luminet
Jean-Pierre Luminet (born 3 June 1951) is a French astrophysicist, specializing in black holes and cosmology. He is an emeritus research director at the CNRS ( Centre national de la recherche scientifique). Luminet is a member of the Laboratoir ...
, astrophysist, and Dominique Lambert, philosopher of science
* 2001 — Kurt Lambeck, geophysicist
* 2003 — Alain Hubert, explorer and climatologist
* 2005 — Édouard Bard, climatologist
* 2007 — Susan Solomon
Susan Solomon is an American atmospheric chemist, working for most of her career at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). In 2011, Solomon joined the faculty at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she serves a ...
, atmospheric chemist and climatologist
* 2009 — Jean Kovalevsky, astronomer
* 2010 — André Berger, climatologist
* 2012 — Michael Heller, cosmologist
* 2015 — Anny Cazenave
Anny Cazenave () is a French space geodesist and one of the pioneers in satellite altimetry. She works for the French space agency CNES and has been deputy director of the (LEGOS) at Observatoire Midi-Pyrénées in Toulouse since 1996. Since 2 ...
, geophysicist, and Jean-Philippe Uzan, theoretical physicist and cosmologist
* 2017 — Kip Thorne
Kip Stephen Thorne (born June 1, 1940) is an American theoretical physicist and writer known for his contributions in gravitational physics and astrophysics. Along with Rainer Weiss and Barry C. Barish, he was awarded the 2017 Nobel Pri ...
, theoretical physicist
* 2019 — George F. R. Ellis
George Francis Rayner Ellis, FRS, Hon. FRSSAf (born 11 August 1939), is the emeritus distinguished professor of complex systems in the Department of Mathematics and Applied Mathematics at the University of Cape Town in South Africa. He co-aut ...
, theoretical physicist and cosmologist
* 2021 — hiatus due to COVID–19 pandemic
* 2023 — Sheperd S. Doeleman, astrophysicist
References
Belgian awards
Science and technology awards
Awards established in 1995
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