
Date: Saturday 15th October | Time: 2.15pm – 3.15pm
Professor Nial Tanvir
Professor of Astronomy University Of Leicester
Nial obtained a BSc in Mathematics and Physics at the University of Durham and stayed on there to do a PhD, working on problems of the extragalactic distance scale. After a short post-doc in Durham, Nial moved to the Institute of Astronomy in Cambridge where he continued to work on the distance scale, as well as expanding to other areas, including investigating the nature of gamma-ray bursts. In 1999 he was appointed as a lecturer at the University of Hertfordshire, and in 2006 moved to the University of Leicester as Professor of Astronomy. His research interests have continued to evolve, and he has made notable progress in the use of gamma-ray bursts to probe the very distant universe, and in opening up the new field of multi-messenger astrophysics. In 2002, Nial was the co-recipient of the European Union Descartes Prize, recognising pioneering contributions to the study of gamma-ray burst afterglows, and in 2019 he was awarded the Royal Astronomical Society’s Herschel Medal for his investigations of the explosive universe.