Martin Rees is Royal Society Research Professor at Cambridge University
and Astronomer Royal. He obtained his M.A. and Ph.D. from Cambridge
in 1967 and worked briefly in the United States. He was then a Professor
at Sussex University before returning to Cambridge in 1973, as Plumian
Professor of Astronomy. He held this post until 1992, and for nine years
of that period also served as Director of the Institute of Astronomy.
He is a Fellow of the Royal Society, and a member of several other academies,
including the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the Russian Academy
of Sciences, and the Pontifical Academy. He has been President of the
Royal Astronomical Society and the British Association for the Advancement
of Science. He has held many visiting professorships in Europe and North
America. His international awards include the Balzan International Prize
and the Bower Award for Science of the Franklin Institute. His research
interests are high energy astrophysics, cosmology, and space research.
In addition to his scientific papers, he writes and lectures extensively
for general audiences. His two most recent books, Gravity's Fatal
Attraction (with M. Begelman) and Before the Beginning: Our Universe
and Others, both appeared in paperback last year.
