UC Berkeley supernova and black hole expert Alex Filippenko will share the 2026 Gruber Cosmology Prize, which was announced today (May 19) by the Gruber Foundation.
The prize, one of the most prestigious awards for research on the origin and fate of the universe, comes with $500,000 to be shared equally with Filippenko’s two co-winners, theoretical physicists Ken’ichi Nomoto of the University of Tokyo and Stanford Woosley of UC Santa Cruz.
The scientists were cited for “transforming supernovae from poorly understood stellar explosions into the basis for a quantitative, predictive and empirically validated framework.”
An astrophysicist, professor of astronomy and one of Berkeley’s most popular teachers, Filippenko played a major role in clarifying the varieties of Type Ia supernovae, allowing these exploding stars to be standardized so that their intrinsic brightness could be used to measure the expansion of the universe. He also was cited for discovering two other variants of Type I supernovae.
“I’m honored, though I can think of numerous other astronomers in this field who are equally deserving,” Filippenko said.
