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. He is currently Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Oxford, 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 "to escape the drudgery" of the course.[1] After going on to study for a PhD in theoretical physics at Imperial College, London, supervised by Andy Albrecht and Neil Turok, Ferreira departed for postdoctoral positions at Berkeley and CERN, before returning to the UK to join the faculty in the astrophysics department at the University of Oxford, where he became Professor of Astrophysics in 2008.[2] He has been director of the Programme on Computational Cosmology at the Oxford Martin School since 2010,[3] and also runs an astrophysics 'artist in residency' programme.[4] 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.[6][7] Ferreira was also a member of the MAXIMA and BOOMERanG balloon-borne CMB experiments, which were two of the first to measure 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.[8]

Books

TV and video

References

  1. ↑ Ferreira, Pedro G. (2014). The Perfect Theory: A century of geniuses and the battle over general relativity. p. x. ISBN 978-1408703106.
  2. ↑ "Curriculum Vitae (short)". Astro.physics.ox.ac.uk. Retrieved 20 December 2014.
  3. ↑ "Professor Pedro Ferreira - People". Oxford Martin School. Retrieved 20 December 2014.
  4. ↑ "Media". Astro.physics.ox.ac.uk. Retrieved 20 December 2014.
  5. ↑ "Scientific Publications (in peer-reviewed journals as of December ’10) For an up to date list in Google Scholar see here". Astro.physics.ox.ac.uk. Retrieved 20 December 2014.
  6. ↑ Ferreira, Pedro; Joyce, Michael (June 1998). "Cosmology with a primordial scaling field". Physical Review D 58 (2). doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.58.023503.
  7. ↑ Ferreira, Pedro G. (June 1999). "The quintessence of cosmology". CERN Courier 39 (5): 13–15.
  8. ↑ "Pedro Ferreira". Hireintelligenceuk.com. Retrieved 20 December 2014.
  9. ↑ Turney, Jon (19 April 2006). "Book Review: The State of the Universe by Pedro G. Ferreira". The Independent.
  10. ↑ Kean, Sam (7 February 2014). "Book Review: 'The Perfect Theory' by Pedro G. Ferreira". The Wall Street Journal.
  11. ↑ "Media". Astro-physics.ox.ac.uk. Retrieved 20 December 2014.

External links

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