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Martin Rees
Martin John Rees, Baron Rees of Ludlow, (born 23 June 1942) is a British cosmologist and astrophysicist. He was the fifteenth Astronomer Royal from 1995 to 2025, and was Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, from 2004 to 2012, and President of the Royal Society between 2005 and 2010. He has received various physics awards including the Wolf Prize in Physics in 2024 for fundamental contributions to high-energy astrophysics, galaxies and structure formation, and cosmology.
Rees was born on 23 June 1942 in York, England. After a peripatetic life during the war his parents, both teachers, settled with Rees, an only child, in a rural part of Shropshire near the border with Wales. There, his parents founded Bedstone College, a boarding school based on progressive educational concepts. He was educated at Bedstone College, then from the age of 13 at Shrewsbury School. He studied for the mathematical tripos at Trinity College, Cambridge, graduating with first class honours. He then undertook post-graduate research at Cambridge and completed a PhD supervised by Dennis Sciama in 1967. Rees's post-graduate work in astrophysics in the mid-1960s coincided with an explosion of new discoveries, with breakthroughs ranging from confirmation of the Big Bang, the discovery of neutron stars and black holes, and a host of other revelations.
After holding postdoctoral research positions in the United Kingdom and the United States, he was a professor at Sussex University, during 1972–1973. He later moved to Cambridge, where he was the Plumian Professor at the University of Cambridge until 1991, and the director of the Institute of Astronomy.
He was professor of astronomy at Gresham College, London, in 1975 and became a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1979. From 1992 to 2003, he was Royal Society Research Professor, and from 2003 Professor of Cosmology and Astrophysics. He was Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, during 2004–2012. He is an Honorary Fellow of Darwin College, King's College, Clare Hall, Robinson College and Jesus College, Cambridge.
Rees is a member of the Board of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, and the Oxford Martin School. He co-founded the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk and serves on the Scientific Advisory Board for the Future of Life Institute. He has formerly been a Trustee of the British Museum, the Science Museum, the Gates Cambridge Trust and the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR).
His doctoral students have included Roger Blandford, Craig Hogan, Nick Kaiser Priyamvada Natarajan, and James E. Pringle.
Rees is the author of more than 500 research papers. He is an author of books on astronomy and science intended for the lay public and gives many public lectures and broadcasts. In 2010 he was invited to deliver the Reith Lectures for the BBC, now published as From Here to Infinity: Scientific Horizons.
Rees has made contributions to the origin of cosmic microwave background radiation, as well as to galaxy clustering and formation. His studies of the distribution of quasars challenged the now-rejected steady state theory. He was one of the first to propose that enormous black holes power quasars, and that superluminal astronomical observations can be explained as an optical illusion caused by an object moving partly in the direction of the observer.
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Martin Rees
Martin John Rees, Baron Rees of Ludlow, (born 23 June 1942) is a British cosmologist and astrophysicist. He was the fifteenth Astronomer Royal from 1995 to 2025, and was Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, from 2004 to 2012, and President of the Royal Society between 2005 and 2010. He has received various physics awards including the Wolf Prize in Physics in 2024 for fundamental contributions to high-energy astrophysics, galaxies and structure formation, and cosmology.
Rees was born on 23 June 1942 in York, England. After a peripatetic life during the war his parents, both teachers, settled with Rees, an only child, in a rural part of Shropshire near the border with Wales. There, his parents founded Bedstone College, a boarding school based on progressive educational concepts. He was educated at Bedstone College, then from the age of 13 at Shrewsbury School. He studied for the mathematical tripos at Trinity College, Cambridge, graduating with first class honours. He then undertook post-graduate research at Cambridge and completed a PhD supervised by Dennis Sciama in 1967. Rees's post-graduate work in astrophysics in the mid-1960s coincided with an explosion of new discoveries, with breakthroughs ranging from confirmation of the Big Bang, the discovery of neutron stars and black holes, and a host of other revelations.
After holding postdoctoral research positions in the United Kingdom and the United States, he was a professor at Sussex University, during 1972–1973. He later moved to Cambridge, where he was the Plumian Professor at the University of Cambridge until 1991, and the director of the Institute of Astronomy.
He was professor of astronomy at Gresham College, London, in 1975 and became a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1979. From 1992 to 2003, he was Royal Society Research Professor, and from 2003 Professor of Cosmology and Astrophysics. He was Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, during 2004–2012. He is an Honorary Fellow of Darwin College, King's College, Clare Hall, Robinson College and Jesus College, Cambridge.
Rees is a member of the Board of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, and the Oxford Martin School. He co-founded the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk and serves on the Scientific Advisory Board for the Future of Life Institute. He has formerly been a Trustee of the British Museum, the Science Museum, the Gates Cambridge Trust and the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR).
His doctoral students have included Roger Blandford, Craig Hogan, Nick Kaiser Priyamvada Natarajan, and James E. Pringle.
Rees is the author of more than 500 research papers. He is an author of books on astronomy and science intended for the lay public and gives many public lectures and broadcasts. In 2010 he was invited to deliver the Reith Lectures for the BBC, now published as From Here to Infinity: Scientific Horizons.
Rees has made contributions to the origin of cosmic microwave background radiation, as well as to galaxy clustering and formation. His studies of the distribution of quasars challenged the now-rejected steady state theory. He was one of the first to propose that enormous black holes power quasars, and that superluminal astronomical observations can be explained as an optical illusion caused by an object moving partly in the direction of the observer.