Prestigious Royal Society award for Professor Sheila Rowan
Published: 3 September 2010
Professor Sheila Rowan, Director of the Institute for Gravitational Research (IGR), has been awarded a prestigious Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award.
Professor Sheila Rowan, Director of the Institute for Gravitational Research (IGR), has been awarded a prestigious Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award.
Jointly funded by the Wolfson Foundation and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), the scheme aims to support respected scientists of outstanding achievement and potential.
Professor Rowan's research is targeted at the development of innovative mirrors used in novel 'gravitational' observatories which are targeted at searching for gravitational signals from astrophysical systems in our Universe. This represents one of the most exciting challenges in experimental physics and astrophysics. It holds great potential for observing exotic objects such as black holes and neutron stars in a way not possible with optical, radio or other electromagnetic observations - through their pure gravitational signals.
It was Professor Rowan's work on the development of low noise optics for use in these detectors which was recognised through this merit award.
Professor Rowan said: "I am delighted to have been recognised by the Royal Society and Wolfson Foundation in this way, and this award reflects the success of the research of the whole IGR."
Professor Rowan was awarded a Philip Leverhulme Prize for Astronomy and Astrophysics in 2005, was elected to Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2008 and is a member of a number of national and international advisory committees in the area of particle astrophysics.
Further information: Martin Shannon, Senior Media Relations Officer, University of Glasgow Tel: 0141 330 8593
First published: 3 September 2010
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