Isabelle Baraffe – who is a leading expert in astrophysics research and professor at CRAL (ENS de Lyon / CNRS / UCBL) and at the University of Exeter – is the recipient of the prestigious Viktor Ambartsumian International Scientific Prize, which she receives jointly with professors Alexander Szalay and Adam Burrows.

The Viktor Ambartsumian International Science Prize is one of the important awards in astronomy/astrophysics and related sciences. Launched in 2010, the Prize is awarded once every two years. The prize is awarded to “outstanding scientists having significant contribution in physical-mathematical sciences from any country and nationality”. The accolade, which comes with a monetary award of $50 ,000, is awarded by the Republic of Armenia.

The honour was granted to Prof Baraffe for her ‘fundamental contributions to the field of low mass stars, brown dwarfs and exoplanets, and for innovative ideas in the domains of asteroseismology and compact binaries’.

Isabelle Baraffe has produced important work in the fields of stellar and planetary astrophysics, encompassing a wide range of physical domains, from Earth-like planets to very massive stars and compact binaries. Her work aims at understanding and properly describing the physical processes characteristic of the formation, the structure and the evolution of substellar (planets, brown dwarfs) and stellar objects. Among her results and achievements, emphasize is made on her key contribution in the field of brown dwarfs and exoplanets.

This is such good news in an otherwise difficult and challenging time. I am very honoured to have been awarded the Viktor Ambartsumian science prize and I would like to share it with my collaborators, postdocs and PhD students who have also contributed to the achievements recognised by this award.