FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE (March 12, 2021) – Professor Renée Hložek has been awarded the Harvey B. Richer Gold Medal for her contributions to astronomy.
The Richer Medal is awarded every second year by the Canadian Astronomical Society (CASCA) in recognition of significant and sustained early career research within the field.
Hložek, an Assistant Professor at the Dunlap Institute and the David A. Dunlap Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics, will receive the award at an upcoming virtual CASCA meeting. She says she’s honoured to be recognized.
“I still pinch myself that I’m able to work in Canada, so receiving this award just blows me away,” Hložek says. “I work in large collaborations of scientists to build big telescopes so that we can get enough data to answer fundamental questions in cosmology. I’m really moved that some of this work is being recognized with the Richer medal.”
Hložek uses data to try and understand what the Universe is made of, its structure, and how it is changing with time. She works in the Simons Observatory collaboration, an international group of scientists building a series of microwave telescopes in the Atacama desert of Northern Chile, to observe the afterglow of the Big Bang. She is also part of the Rubin Observatory’s Dark Energy Science Collaboration which is gearing up to use the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) to unravel the mysteries of cosmic acceleration.
“This is fantastic recognition of Professor Hložek’s many contributions,” says Dunlap Institute Director Bryan Gaensler. “She has had an electrifying effect on Canadian astronomy, and has brought many new ideas, approaches and discoveries to the table. It’s exciting to think that she is still only very early in her career – her future is very bright.”
The Richer Medal was established in 2016 following a gift from Prof. Harvey B. Richer, a former Director of CASCA and a Professor at the University of British Columbia.
Hložek is the first researcher from the University of Toronto to receive this prestigious award.
For more information, please contact:
Meaghan MacSween
Communications and Multimedia Officer
Dunlap Institute for Astronomy & Astrophysics,
University of Toronto
meaghan.macsween@utoronto.ca
For a high resolution photo of Hložek, you can download here. Please credit the Dunlap Institute for Astronomy & Astrophysics.
The Dunlap Institute for Astronomy & Astrophysics at the University of Toronto is an endowed research institute with more than 90 faculty, postdocs, students and staff, dedicated to innovative technology, ground-breaking research, world-class training, and public engagement. The research themes of its faculty and Dunlap Fellows span the Universe and include: optical, infrared and radio instrumentation; Dark Energy; large-scale structure; the Cosmic Microwave Background; the interstellar medium; galaxy evolution; cosmic magnetism; and time-domain science. The Dunlap Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics, David A. Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics and the Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics comprise the leading centre for astronomical research in Canada, at the leading research university in the country, the University of Toronto.