Reaching for the stars

It has been nothing short of a meteoric rise in a largely white male domain for Lankan-born Professor of Astrophysics at University College London, Hiranya Peiris, as she enters  the Royal Astronomical Society’s hall of fame

Carl Sagan’s Cosmos was a documentary TV series that held the children of the 1980’s in utter thrall- taking them on a voyage across an endless dark magical universe full of awe and mystery. It must have created many a future scientist and astronomer. It was certainly the igniting spark for Hiranya Peiris barely nine years old then; today Professor of Astrophysics at University College, London.

This year, Hiranya enters the Royal Astronomical Society’s hall of fame by being awarded the annual Eddington Medal for “investigations of outstanding merit in theoretical astrophysics”.

She is only the third woman to be given the honour (instituted in 1953).     [Read more}