Pedro G. Ferreira

Pedro Gil Ferreira
Born (1968-03-18) March 18, 1968
Lisbon, Portugal
Residence UK
Citizenship British/Portuguese
Nationality British Portuguese
Fields Cosmology
Institutions University of Oxford
CERN
University of California Berkeley
Alma mater Technical University of Lisbon
Imperial College London
Doctoral advisor Andreas Albrecht
Neil Turok
Known for Quintessence
Modified gravity

Pedro Gil Ferreira (born 18 March 1968) is a British/Portuguese astrophysicist and author.[1][2] In 2016 he is Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Oxford,[3] and a fellow of Oriel College.

Life

Ferreira was born in Lisbon, Portugal, and attended the Technical University of Lisbon, where he studied engineering from 1986-1991. While there, he taught himself general relativity. He studied for a PhD in theoretical physics at Imperial College, London, supervised by Andy Albrecht and Neil Turok. He occupied postdoctoral positions at Berkeley and CERN, before returning to the UK to join the faculty in the astrophysics department at the University of Oxford as a research fellow and lecturer.[4] He became Professor of Astrophysics there in 2008. He has been director of the Programme on Computational Cosmology at the Oxford Martin School since 2010, and also runs an astrophysics 'artist in residency' programme. Ferreira regularly lectures at the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences, and has frequently appeared on TV and radio as a science commentator.

Research

Ferreira's main interests are in general relativity and theoretical cosmology. He has authored more than 100 publications in peer-reviewed scientific journals.[5] With Michael Joyce, in 1997 he was one of the first to propose quintessence scalar field models as a possible explanation of dark energy. Ferreira was also a member of the MAXIMA and BOOMERanG balloon-borne CMB experiments, which measured the acoustic peaks of the CMB. He is currently involved in several proposals to test general relativity using the Euclid spacecraft and Square Kilometre Array radio telescope.

Media

Ferreira is a regular contributor to the scientific press, including Nature, Science, and New Scientist, and has authored two popular science books on cosmology and the history of general relativity. One of them, The Perfect Theory, was shortlisted for the 2014 Royal Society Winton Prize for Science Books. He regularly appears on TV and radio to discuss astrophysics and cosmology news stories, and has contributed to several science and mathematics documentaries for the BBC, Discovery Channel, and others. In 2016 he serves on the editorial board of the Open Journal of Astrophysics.[6]

Books

TV and video

References

  1. ↑ Janna Levin (29 March 2016). Black Hole Blues and Other Songs from Outer Space. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. pp. 226–. ISBN 978-0-307-95820-4.
  2. ↑ Paul Halpern (10 August 2012). Edge of the Universe: A Voyage to the Cosmic Horizon and Beyond. John Wiley & Sons. pp. 57–. ISBN 978-1-118-23460-0.
  3. 1 2 "Watch this spacetime: gravitational wave discovery expected". The Guardian, Ian Sample, 9 February 2016
  4. ↑ Symmetry: Dimensions of Particle Physics. Fermi National Accelerator Lab. 2007. p. 92.
  5. ↑ Google Scholar report for Pedro Ferreira
  6. ↑ "Open journals that piggyback on arXiv gather momentum". Nature, Volume 530, Issue 7588, Toolbox Elizabeth Gibney, 04 January 2016
  7. ↑ Turney, Jon (19 April 2006). "Book Review: The State of the Universe by Pedro G. Ferreira". The Independent.
  8. ↑ Kean, Sam (7 February 2014). "Book Review: 'The Perfect Theory' by Pedro G. Ferreira". The Wall Street Journal.

External links

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