Prof. em. Dr. Simon Lilly
Prof. em. Dr. Simon Lilly
Professor Emeritus at the Department of Physics
Additional information
Simon Lilly was elected as Full Professor of Experimental Astrophysics in February 2002. His research work focuses on studying the formation and evolution of galaxies over the whole cosmic history of the Universe. Over his career he has successfully developed and applied observational techniques to detect and study some of the most distant galaxies known, and has carried out a number of systematic surveys of the very distant Universe. Born in 1959, Simon Lilly obtained his PhD at the University of Edinburgh in 1984 and carried out postdoctoral research at Princeton University. He was subsequently appointed to faculty positions at the University of Hawaii (1985) and the University of Toronto (1990). Immediately prior to his appointment to the ETH, Simon Lilly served as the Director General of the Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics of the National Research Council of Canada. His research achievements have been recognized by numerous awards and honours, including his election as Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2014 and the 2017 award of the Herschel Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society. Notable research highlights have included the first measurement of the changes of the overall star-formation rate of the Universe over cosmic time and the development of a new "reverse engineering" approach to understanding the evolution of the galaxy population. Since returning to Europe in 2002, he has been a member of numerous European Boards and Advisory Committees that have guided the development of ESO and ESA, co-ordinated the production of the first decadal Swiss "Roadmap for Astronomy and Astrophysics" in 2007, and served for eight years on the Research Council of the Swiss National Research Council. Simon Lilly played a major role in the early development of NASA's current flagship space astronomy mission, the James Webb Space Telescope, which will be launched in 2019, and currently serves as an Interdisciplinary Scientist on the Flight Science Working Group of that mission.
Education
1980 B.A. in Natural Sciences (Physics and Theoretical Physics, 1st Class Hons.); Cambridge University (UK)
1984 Ph.D. in Astronomy; Edinburgh University (UK). Thesis: "The evolution of radio galaxies" (M.S. Longair, supervisor).
Employment
2002 - present Full Professor, Dept. of Physics, ETH Zurich
2000 - 2002 Director General, Herzberg Inst. of Astrophys.
(NRC Canada)
1990 - 2000 Associate/Full Professor, University of Toronto
1985 - 1990 Assistant/Associate Professor, University of Hawaii
1984 - 1985 SERC/NATO Research Fellow, Princeton University
Research Interests
Observational Cosmology and the Formation and Evolution of Structure in the Universe
The evolution of galaxies
We seek to chart how galaxies have evolved over cosmic time, and to identify and understand those physical processes that have shaped their properties in different environments and at different epochs. A flagship project is zCOSMOS, a major redshift survey using 600 hours on the ESO VLT to obtain redshifts of approximately 30,000 galaxies in the COSMOS field, in the redshift range 0.1 < z < 3.5. The project is specifically designed to characterize the environments of galaxies in the distant Universe, from the 100kpc scale of the immediate group environment to the 100 Mpc scale of the cosmic web. A major focus at present is to identify the underlying simplicities of the galaxy population, today and at earlier times, and to use these to identify the phenomenological characteristics of the dominant physical processes involved.
The intergalactic medium
As an extension of our interest in the environment of galaxies, we are developing new ways to detect the intergalactic medium (IGM), the gaseous material between galaxies. Galaxies form out of the IGM and exchange material with it throughout their lives. We are currently working on detecting and characterizing galactic outflows through the study of metal absorption lines, and in detecting the extended filamentary structure of the IGM at high redshifts through fluorescent emission.
Magnetic fields in galaxies
The origin of galactic-scale magnetic fields is poorly understood, and their role in cosmic structure formation is unknown, and thus they usually ignored. We are trying to fill this gap by detecting magnetic fields in and around galaxies at high redshift.
Galaxies as cosmological probes
Very large samples of galaxies at different redshifts are increasingly being used as precision probes of the dynamical evolution of the Universe as a whole, especially to study the emergence of Dark Energy over the redshift interval 0 < z < 2. The ultimate success of this effort will require the detailed consideration of the evolving properties of galaxies. We have a continuing interest in exploring this aspect of cosmology, in collaboration with other groups at ETH.
Major external activites
1991-1994 Member, Hubble Space Telescope Users' Committee (NASA)
1992-1996 Member, Gemini International Science Committee
1994-1997 Director-at-Large, AURA
1994-1996 Member, CSA Joint Subcommittee on Space Astronomy
1995-1997 Member, Advisory Board, NRC Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics
1998-2001 Canadian Project Scientist and member, Science Working Group, NASA/CSA Next Generation Space Telescope
1999-2001 Member, CFHT Scientific Advisory Council
2000-2002 Member, Gemini International Board of Directors
2000-2002 Member, ALMA International Co-ordinating Committee
2002-2006 Member, ESO Scientific and Technical Committee
2002-present Interdisciplinary Scientist and member of the Flight Science Working Group, NASA/ESA James Webb Space Telescope
2003-2006 President, IAU Commission #47 Cosmology
2004-2007 Member, ESA Astronomy Working Group
2005-2007 Coordinator of the "Roadmap for Astronomy in Switzerland 2007-2016"
2008-2011 Member of the ESA Euclid Science Study Team
2008-present Member, ERC Advanced Grants Panel
2003, 2008 Panel Chair, Hubble Space Telescope Time Allocation Committee (NASA)
2009-present, Member Swiss National Research Council (DIV II)
2010 Member, ESO Visiting Committee
2010 Panel Chair, ESO Observing Programs Committee
2009-2011 Member, ESA Space Science Advisory Committee
Awards
2000 - R & B Sackler Lecturer, Leiden University
1997 - 2002 Fellow, Canadian Inst. for Adv. Res.
1996 R & B Sackler Distinguished Visiting Astronomer, Cambridge
1996 - 1997 Visiting Fellow, Clare Hall College, Cambridge
2014 Elected Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS)
2017 Herschel Medal
2017 shared the Carl Sagan Memorial Award of the American Astronautical Society
Publications
external page ADS published papers
Please click Download here (PDF, 178 KB) to download the 5-year bibliography in pdf
Involvement in Instrumentation
I am involved in several instrumentation projects, including the James Webb Space Telescope (external page JWST), for which I am one of the six Interdisciplinary Scientists and also a member of the external page NIRCAM and external page MIRI Instrument Science Team and external page MUSE, a proposed 2nd-generation integral field spectrograph for the external page ESO external page VLT.