Roger Blandford

Blandford was born in Grantham, England and grew up in Birmingham.[1]

Blandford is famous in the astrophysical community for the Blandford-Znajek process which is a mechanism for powering relativistic jets by the extraction of rotational energy from a black hole.[2] The Blandford-Znajek mechanism has been invoked by the Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration to explain the jet power in the first observation of a black hole shadow in the giant elliptical galaxy M87.[3] Blandford also theorized another mechanism for jet formation through hydromagnetic winds launched from accretion disks.[4] In addition to the Blandford-Znajek and Blandford-Payne mechanisms for the formation of relativistic jets, Roger Blandford also helped devise a widely used theoretical model for jet geometric and spectral properties, the Blandford-Königl conical jet model,[5] used to predict radio shifts and low-frequency spectral slopes for optically thick jet cores.[6] He has also made significant contributions to other astrophysical phenomena such as supernovae, by extending the Sedov-Taylor blast wave solution to the ultra-relativistic limit of the Blandford-McKee solution.[5]

In April 2005 he wrote a letter to the astronomy community showing his concern about the George W. Bush administration US space science policy.[7]

He is also the chair of Astro2010, the decadal survey that helps define and recommend funding priorities for U.S. astronomy research in the upcoming decade. The Astro2010 report was released August 13, 2010.[8]

Blandford is a Fellow of the Royal Society, Member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society and Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.[9] He is currently Luke Blossom Professor in the School of Humanities and Sciences at Stanford University, Professor of Physics at Stanford University and at Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) National Accelerator Laboratory.[10] He was the Pehong and Adele Chen Director, Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology from 2003 to 2013.[10][11] He was a co-editor of the Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics (2005–2011).[12][13]

• 2020 – Elected a Legacy Fellow of the American Astronomical Society[14]
• 2020 – Shaw Prize in Astronomy[15]
• 2016 – Crafoord Prize[16]
• 2013 – Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society[17]
• 2011 – Humboldt Prize[18]
• 1999 – Eddington Medal[19]
• 1998 – Dannie Heineman Prize for Astrophysics[20]
• 1982 – Helen B. Warner Prize for Astronomy[21]

• Oral history interview transcript with Roger Blandford on 29 April 2021, American Institute of Physics, Niels Bohr Library and Archives
• Faculty webpage of Roger Blandford at Stanford University
• Prof Roger Blandford, FRS at Debrett's People of Today
• Blandford's Public Lecture on Black Holes: The End of Time or a New Beginning on YouTube, Part of the Silicon Valley Astronomy Lecture Series