Douglas Gough

Douglas Owen Gough FRS (born 8 February 1941)^[1] is a British astronomer, Professor Emeritus of Theoretical Astrophysics in the University of Cambridge, and Leverhulme Emeritus Fellow.^[2] In 2010, he won the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society.^[3]

Life

Douglas Gough is known as the Father of Helioseismology. He was educated at Hackney Downs School, then at the University of Cambridge (St John’s College) where he studied at the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics (DAMTP); then at JILA (Colorado) with John Cox, and at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies and at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences in New York from 1967 to 1969, with Edward Spiegel. He returned to Cambridge in 1969, to the Institute of Theoretical Astronomy and DAMTP, and was Director of the Institute of Astronomy from 1999 to 2004. He has been a Fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge, since 1972, a Fellow Adjoint of JILA since 1986, an Honorary Professor of Astronomy at Queen Mary and Westfield College, University of London (1986-2009), and a Visiting Professor of Physics (now Consulting Professor) at Stanford University since 1996. ^[4]^[5] In 2003 he was recognized by HM Queen Elizabeth II as a Pioneer to the Life of the Nation. He retired from the University of Cambridge in 2008. He was awarded the William Hopkins Prize of the Cambridge Philosophical Society in 1984, the George Ellery Hale Prize of the American Astronomical Society in 1994, the Eddington Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 2002 and the Gold Medal in 2010. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society, a Fellow of the Institute of Physics, a Foreign Member of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters, and a Mousquetaire d'Armagnac.