The official citation states: “ This year's European Latsis Prize is awarded to Professor Simon White, Director at the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics, for his outstanding contribution to the field of astrophysics.
White has pioneered the simulations of large scale structure of matter and its evolution in the Universe and the cold dark matter hierarchical paradigm (CDM) that has become an important ingredient of the currently accepted "standard" view of cosmic history. His research has shown that cold dark matter dominated cosmologies were preferred for explaining the observed large scale structure of galaxies that became available at about the same time. That work also showed that warm dark matter could be excluded.
The achievements of White in cosmology are well recognized - he is a Fellow of the Royal Society, Foreign Associate of the USA National Academy of Sciences, Fellow of the "Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina". In the 1990s, and especially since building up the Max-Planck Institute for Astrophysics as a leading European and World center of theoretical astrophysics, White has been at the forefront of understanding galaxy formation and evolution.
The European Latsis Prize, valued at 100,000 Swiss Francs (€ 65,000) is financed by the Geneva-based Latsis Foundation and awarded by the European Science Foundation to an individual or group who, in the opinion of their peers, has made the greatest contribution to a particular field of European research. ”

Further information:

The Latsis Prize
The European Science Foundation

Contact:
Cornelia Rickl, Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics
Tel. +49 89 30000-2201
E-mail: crickl mpa-garching.mpg.de