UCL astronomer and children’s book author wins lifetime achievement award

The award recognises career-long, significant contributions supporting UK astronomy. Professor Prinja has written more than 20 popular science books, many of them for children, and has won multiple awards, including the Royal Society Young People’s Book Prize, for his 2019 book Planetarium. Some of these books have been translated into dozens of foreign languages. His latest book, Wonders of the Moon, was published last year.

At UCL, Professor Prinja served as Head of the Department of Physics & Astronomy between 2018 and 2025. Prior to that, he served in leadership roles for student learning, support, curriculum and education development.

Professor Prinja has also received numerous awards for his teaching, and led major research programmes including COBRaS, which used the e-MERLIN array of radio telescopes to observe massive stars in the Cygnus OB2 star-forming region. He was appointed an MBE for services to academia and education in the 2025 King’s Birthday Honours.

Professor Prinja said: “I am very honoured to receive this Lifetime Achievement award from the Royal Astronomical Society. I am deeply grateful to a wide range of colleagues and collaborators for their inspiring partnerships over many years and look forward to continuing this engagement with them all.”

Professor Ivan Parkin, Dean of the Faculty of Mathematical & Physical Sciences, said: "This is tremendous news and shows the depth of Raman's scholarship and ability to transform complex ideas to the next generations."

Each year the RAS recognises significant achievement in the fields of astronomy and geophysics through a number of awards, medals and prizes, encompassing different types of talent from research to education and outreach. Some of the awards date back 200 years.

Professor Mike Lockwood, President of the RAS, said: “I want to give my warmest congratulations to all the award winners.

"My thanks go to those who serve on our awards panels and the RAS staff who help them – they have done a truly fantastic job – and it is a very difficult job indeed because all the nominations were very deserving cases.

“I also want to thank all who submitted nominations for bringing all candidates to the attention of the panels. Reading about the work of the winners was genuinely uplifting and a pure delight.

“There is so much achievement recognised by the awards and also so much effort to spark interest in potential young scientists and to promote astronomy and geophysics.”

Links

• Professor Raman Prinja’s academic profile
• UCL Physics & Astronomy
• UCL Mathematical & Physical Sciences
• RAS

Image

• Professor Raman Prinja

Media contact

Mark Greaves

m.greaves [at] ucl.ac.uk

+44 (0)20 3108 9485