Eiichiro Komatsu has been a member of the WMAP Team since 2001 and is lead author of the papers presenting the cosmological interpretation of their five- and seven-year WMAP datasets. The WMAP satellite mission has mapped the nearly uniform Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) radiation across the whole sky, making an image of tiny variations in temperature which reflect small density fluctuations. From these data, the cosmological parameters can be deduced with very high accuracy – they are in fact so precise that they now form the Standard Cosmological Model.

The Lancelot M. Berkeley New York Community Trust Prize for Meritorious Work in Astronomy was recently established and is now awarded annually for highly meritorious work in advancing the science of astronomy published in a peer-reviewed journal during the previous year. No restrictions are placed on a candidate's citizenship or country of residency. In 2010, the prize was awarded jointly to William J. Borucki and David G. Koch from the NASA Ames Research Center and in 2011 to Linda Tacconi from the MPE.

Original publication:

Komatsu, E., et.al., "Seven-year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) Observations: Cosmological Interpretation", 2011, ApJS, 192, 18 http://iopscience.iop.org/0067-0049/192/2/18