The 2019 Dirac Medal winners were announced yesterday. This year Prize goes to Viatcheslav Mukhanov (Ludwig-Maximilians- Universität, Munich), Alexei Starobinsky (Landau Institute for Theoretical Physics) and Rashid Sunyaev (Max-Planck Institute for Astrophysics, Garching).
All three physicists have had an important role in many SISSA scientific activities: Mukhanov is Scientific Director of The Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics (JCAP), the international, peer-reviewed, online-only journal created by SISSA and the Institute of Physics Publishing (IOP Publishing). Starobinsky is a member of the JCAP editorial board whereas professor Sunyaev is a former member of the School's International Advisory Committee.
They were awarded for their outstanding contributions to the physics of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) with experimentally tested implications that have helped to transform cosmology into a precision scientific discipline by combining microscopic physics with the large scale structure of the universe.
The Dirac Medal is given annually by the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) in honour of physicist Paul Dirac. The award is announced each year on 8 August, Dirac's birthday.