Gilles Chabrier is a French astrophysicist who is best known for his work on

brown dwarfs Brown dwarfs are substellar objects that have more mass than the biggest gas giant planets, but less than the least massive main-sequence stars. Their mass is approximately 13 to 80 times that of Jupiter ()not big enough to sustain nuclear fu ...

. He is currently a professor of astronomy at the

University of Exeter The University of Exeter is a research university in the West Country of England, with its main campus in Exeter, Devon. Its predecessor institutions, St Luke's College, Exeter School of Science, Exeter School of Art, and the Camborne School of ...

Life and scientific work

Gilles Chabrier was born on 30 June 1955 in

Lyon Lyon (Franco-Provençal: ''Liyon'') is a city in France. It is located at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône, to the northwest of the French Alps, southeast of Paris, north of Marseille, southwest of Geneva, Switzerland, north ...

. He studied physics at the

École normale supérieure École or Ecole may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by Secondary education in France, secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing i ...

(ENS). After completing his PhD he continued his research at the

University of Rochester The University of Rochester is a private university, private research university in Rochester, New York, United States. It was founded in 1850 and moved into its current campus, next to the Genesee River in 1930. With approximately 30,000 full ...

. In the early 1990s he built up a research group at the

École normale supérieure de Lyon École or Ecole may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France * Éco ...

(ENS-Lyon) in collaboration with the nearby

Lyon Observatory Lyon Observatory is an astronomical observatory located in Saint-Genis-Laval, a Communes of France, commune in the Rhône (department), Rhône Departments of France, department in eastern France, near Lyon. Founded in 1878, the entire facility was ...

. In 1995, the Centre de recherche astronomique de Lyon was founded, known as the Centre de Recherche Astrophysics Lyon (CRAL) since 2007. Chabrier continues to lead one of the research groups at CRAL. He is also a research director at the

Centre national de la recherche scientifique The French National Centre for Scientific Research (, , CNRS) is the French state research organisation and is the largest fundamental science agency in Europe. In 2016, it employed 31,637 staff, including 11,137 tenured researchers, 13,415 eng ...

(CNRS). Before the discovery of

in 1995, Chabrier helped develop the theory of their structure in collaboration with Isabelle Baraffe, France Allard and Didier Saumon

Awards

* 2006 CNRS Silver Medal * 2010 Jean Ricard Prize * 2012

Eddington Medal The Eddington Medal is awarded by the Royal Astronomical Society for investigations of outstanding merit in theoretical astrophysics. It is named after Sir Arthur Eddington. First awarded in 1953, the frequency of the prize has varied over the ye ...

* 2014 Ampère Prize * 2019 Fred Hoyle Medal and Prize * 2024

Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society The Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society is the highest award given by the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS). The RAS Council have "complete freedom as to the grounds on which it is awarded" and it can be awarded for any reason. Past awar ...

References

Academics of the University of Exeter French astrophysicists Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Research directors of the French National Centre for Scientific Research {{France-scientist-stub