Tomalla Prize Winners
The Tomalla Prize is distributed about every three years for extraordinary contributions to general relativity and gravity. For the latest prizes you can download the prize colloquium by clicking on the names and the laudatio by clicking on 'Laudatio'.
2022 — Alessandra Buonanno
For her outstanding work on gravitational wave physics, especially for the effective one-body approach to describe the gravitational waves emitted by binary black holes or neutron stars, and for other important contributions relevant for the detection of gravitational waves.
2016 — Kip S. Thorne
For his seminal contributions to General Relativity and, in particular for his pioneering role in the LIGO experiment which has led to the first direct detection of gravitational waves.
Read Laudatio →2013 — Scott Tremaine
For his contribution to gravitational dynamics.
2009 — A. Starobinsky
For his pioneering contributions to inflationary cosmology and especially for the determination of the spectrum of gravitational waves generated during inflation.
Read Laudatio →2009 — Viatcheslav Mukhanov
For his contributions to inflationary cosmology and especially for the determination of the density perturbation spectrum from inflation.
2008 — D. Christodoulou
For his important contributions to general relativity, especially for his rigorous demonstration of global non-linear stability of Minkowski spacetime.
Read Laudatio →2003 — P.J. Peebles
For his leading role in cosmology research, especially on the cosmic microwave background and the large scale structure of the Universe.
2000 — G.A. Tammann
For his efforts in measuring the expansion rate of the universe and especially for his pioneering work using Supernovae as standard candles.
1996 — W. Israel
For his work on mathematical relativity, especially on the uniqueness of black hole solutions.
1993 — A.R. Sandage
For his lifelong efforts in measuring the dynamics of the Universe.
1987 — J.H. Taylor
For his discovery and persistent study on the binary pulsar PSR1913+16, which led to the first (indirect) detection of gravitational waves.
1984 — A. Sakharov
For his fundamental contribution to the problem of the matter–antimatter asymmetry in the Universe and his new ideas on gravity at a fundamental level (induced gravity).
1981 — S. Chandrasekhar
For his contributions to relativistic astrophysics, especially for the discovery of a limiting mass for the final stages of stars.