On May 30, 2025, Professor Norman Murray was named a Fellow of the Canadian Association of Physicists (CAP). This honor recognizes his “outstanding research in theoretical astrophysics, with major contributions in extrasolar and solar planets, helioseismology, energetics of galaxies, and black hole AGN feedback; and for an outstanding record of mentorship and training.”

The CAP Fellows Program, established in 2022, celebrates CAP members for significant contributions to physics research, teaching, technology advancement, or service to the CAP. Notable past recipients include Canadian Nobel Laureates Arthur B. McDonald and Donna Strickland (first cohort) and CITA Professor R. J. Bond (2023 cohort).

This CAP Fellowship marks Professor Murray’s fourth prestigious honor this year. In April, he was appointed to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and also elected as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a Fellow of the American Astronomical Society (AAS).

Professor Murray, a long-standing faculty member at the Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics (CITA) at the University of Toronto, has a distinguished career. His recent accolades join a long list of honors, including the Dannie Heineman Prize for Astrophysics (2022), Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (2021), and Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2020). Beyond his numerous distinctions and fundamental contributions to astrophysics, Professor Murray has mentored over 50 postdoctoral fellows and many graduate students, with many of his former students now leaders in the field.

CITA Fellow Akshara Viswanathan is one of the three winners of the , shared with?Deaglan John Bartlett, Sambatriniaina Hagiriche Aycha Rajohnson.

Each year, , in collaboration with the International Astronomical Union (IAU), funds a US$75 000 fellowship programme for promising young astronomers.?“The TGF Fellowship selection committee was deeply impressed by the exceptional quality and originality of this year’s applications. The current generation of early-career astronomers is distinguished by an extraordinary depth of insight and creativity, and the breadth of stimulating research proposals made the selection process both inspiring and exceedingly competitive. We warmly congratulate the 2025 TGF Fellowship recipients and wish all applicants continued success in their future academic and professional endeavours.”?said IAU Vice-President and Chair of the TGF committee Hyesung Kang.

In reaction to the award, Dr. Viswanathan shared, “I’m honoured to receive the Gruber Fellowship and grateful to IAU and TGF for supporting early-career researchers in astrophysics. This award will help advance my work on low-metallicity stellar streams in the Milky Way’s outer halo and build collaborations to combine observational data with simulations in this next stage of research. I’m especially thankful to my PhD supervisor Else Starkenburg, the Pristine collaboration, and colleagues at Groningen, CCA, UVic and CITA. Fellowships like this play a vital role in building inclusive, collaborative science — and I feel fortunate to be part of that effort”.

Akshara Viswanathan?started her CITA National Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Victoria, Canada in January 2025. Her research aims to study the low-mass, low-metallicity stellar streams in the Milky Way’s outer halo, which are remnants of ancient accretion events, to understand the early assembly of the galaxy. By combining observational data from surveys like Gaia and Euclid with cosmological simulations, she will explore the role of these stellar streams in galaxy formation, the nature of dark matter, and the early universe’s chemical enrichment processes.?Dr. Viswanathan?is an astronomer from India who completed her PhD at the University of Groningen in 2024.

On May 21, 2025 the Division on Dynamical Astronomy (DDA) announced that CITA Fellow Sam Hadden is the 2025 recipient of ?in recognition of his?“term-by-term analysis of planetary dynamics, work that leads the field in both insight and usability”.

Dr. Hadden’s doctoral research used analytic perturbation theory to efficiently analyze the largest set of transit timing variations, leveraging data from NASA’s Kepler mission. He validated classical theory against real systems and advanced models of planetary resonance, from the restricted case to general two-planet systems with arbitrary masses and eccentricities. By extending Hill’s approximation beyond first-order resonances, he significantly improved our understanding of instability boundaries. This achievement addresses a longstanding challenge, tracing back to the work of Laplace, in delineating the transition from orderly motion to chaos.

With this award, DDA further recognizes Dr. Hadden’s successful co-development (with Dr. Daniel Tamayo) of open-source planetary dynamics codes, his excellent supervision of student research, and his service to the dynamical community. Dr. Hadden will be invited to give a lecture at the 57th annual DDA meeting, which will be held in Chicago in spring 2026.

As a Post Doctoral Fellow at the Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics, Dr. Hadden continues his work as a dynamicist with a focus on explaining phenomena governed by classical theories of Hamiltonian dynamics and statistical mechanics. Prior to coming to CITA, University of Toronto, he was a CfA Fellow at the . Dr. Hadden received his PhD in Physics and Astronomy from in 2017.

The Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics (CITA) proudly announces that?Professor J. Richard Bond?has been awarded the?. Professor Bond, also a University Professor at the University of Toronto, shares the prize equally with Professor George Efstathiou of the University of Cambridge, UK. The two astrophysicists are distinguished for pioneering research that has fundamentally reshaped our understanding of the universe, including its geometry, age, and expansion rate.

The Shaw Prize recognizes their groundbreaking work on the fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) – the faint afterglow of the Big Bang. Their theoretical predictions, verified by an armada of ground-based, balloon-borne, and space-based instruments (like NASA’s WMAP and ESA’s Planck spacecraft), have led to remarkably precise determinations of the universe’s age, its geometric shape, and its composition of matter and energy.

In reaction to the news, Stephen Wright, Acting Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Science at the University of Toronto, commented:“Professor Bond’s pioneering work in theoretical cosmology has helped answer fundamental questions about what the universe is made of, how it grew into its current form and how it might evolve in the future. It is wonderful to see his exceptional contributions to astronomy recognized with this award and I extend my heartfelt congratulations on this well-deserved honour.”

“We are incredibly proud of Dick Bond for this well-deserved international recognition,” said Shantanu Basu, Director of CITA. “His visionary research into the early universe has not only provided the theoretical bedrock for interpreting CMB observations but has also affirmed CITA’s and Canada’s position at the forefront of global cosmology.”

Cosmology has experienced a golden age over the past two decades, largely driven by increasingly precise measurements of these tiny variations in the CMB. Though these fluctuations are minuscule – the CMB’s temperature is uniform to better than 0.01% – they hold the secrets of the universe’s infancy. Bond and Efstathiou, as recognized by the Shaw Foundation, were crucial in understanding that these variations could unlock fundamental cosmological parameters with accuracies previously unimaginable. Their theoretical frameworks are now the standard tools used worldwide to interpret CMB data.

This work has allowed scientists to confirm that the universe’s geometry is nearly flat, meaning that the curvature of space-time is essentially zero, determine its age to within 0.15% (approximately 13.8 billion years), measure its expansion rate with 0.5% precision, and quantify the amount of mysterious dark energy to better than 1%.

Beyond his seminal CMB work, Professor Bond has made other profound contributions recognized by the Shaw Prize. He co-introduced the concept of the “cosmic web”— the vast network of filaments connecting galaxies and galaxy clusters. He also developed key mathematical theories for understanding how galaxies cluster and made fundamental contributions to understanding the inflationary phase of the very early universe.

Professor Efstathiou is similarly lauded for his leadership in studying galaxy clustering, his early conceptualisation of the universe as dominated by dark energy, and his development of powerful N-body simulations to model cosmic structures.

The research by both laureates touches upon almost every aspect of modern cosmology and has been instrumental in establishing the standard cosmological model – our current best description of the universe.

桔子视频 the Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics (CITA):
CITA is a national research institute hosted by the University of Toronto, dedicated to the study of the origin and evolution of the universe and the advancement of astrophysics and astronomy. Its researchers are at the cutting edge of theoretical and computational astrophysics, contributing to our understanding of everything from the earliest moments of the cosmos to the formation of stars and galaxies.

桔子视频 the Shaw Prize:
, established in 2002 by the philanthropist Mr. Run Run Shaw, honours individuals who have achieved significant breakthroughs in academic and scientific research or applications, and whose work has resulted in a positive and profound impact on mankind. It consists of three annual prizes – Astronomy, Life Science and Medicine, and Mathematical Sciences – each bearing a monetary award of US$1.2 million. Professor Bond is the first faculty member of the University of Toronto to receive this prestigious distinction.

Listen to?the?Physics World Weekly??featuring?and?Richard Bond.?Bond and Efstathiou talk about how the CMB emerged when the universe was just 380,000 years old and explain how the CMB is observed today. They explain why studying fluctuations in today’s CMB provides a window into the nature of the universe as it existed long ago, and how future studies could help physicists understand the nature of dark matter – which is one of the greatest mysteries in physics.

Physics World:

Contact:
Lyuba Encheva
Communications and Events Coordinator
Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics
Email: communication@cita.utoronto.ca