The 2014 Shaw Prize in Astronomy has been awarded to Daniel Eisenstein, John Peacock, and Shaun Cole “for their contributions to the measurements of features in the large-scale structure of galaxies used to constrain the cosmological model including baryon acoustic oscillations and redshift-space distortions.” For more details on the Shaw Prize see http://www.shawprize.org/en/

Daniel Eisenstein, the director of SDSS-III, remarks that “although this is a tremendously gratifying personal recognition, it is also a wonderful recognition of the SDSS/BOSS and 2dFGRS collaborations that have created these exquisite surveys and pushed forward the science of large-scale structure. It is a great honor for our field and our teams!”

Shaun Cole and John Peacock were key members of the 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey (2dFGRS) which together with the work of Daniel Eisenstein and his SDSS collaborators made the first detections of the baryon acoustic oscillation pattern in the distribution of galaxies in the Universe. Baryon acoustic oscillations are an imprint from fluctuations of matter and light in the early Universe. By measuring the apparent size of this pattern at different cosmic eras, astronomers are studying the nature and amount of dark matter and dark energy that govern our expanding Universe.

SDSS congratulates all of the winners of this year’s Shaw Prize in Astronomy!