2008 Brouwer Award Winner - Victor Brumberg

Victor A. Brumberg has had a long and distinguished career in dynamical astronomy, and from 1987 to 2004, was the Chief Scientist of the Institute of Applied Astronomy of the Russian Academy of Sciences. His accomplishments include the major achievement of establishing the field of general relativity applied to celestial mechanics, such as in the definitions of dynamical reference frames, and relativistic lunar dynamics.

The impact of Victor Brumberg on science is not, however, limited to relativity. He has made significant contributions to planetary theory, the restricted three body problem, stability of dynamical motions, the secular increase of the astronomical unit, analytical techniques for highly eccentric orbits, the acquisition and reductions of observational measurements, and the rotation of the Earth. He has authored over a 100 publications and six books, among them the highly influential Essential Relativistic Celestial Mechanics (1991) and Analytic Techniques of Celestial Mechanics (1995). He has also served the astronomical community as Chairman of the IAU commission 7 on Celestial Mechanics, and as Assistant Editor of the Celestial Mechanics and Dynamical Astronomy Journal until 2005. Professor Brumberg has held several visiting positions in France, Germany, and Japan and his books are a significant factor in the education he has provided in the field. Finally, Victor Brumberg is the founder of a whole scientific school with eighteen graduate students many of whom are making significant contributions in the field of dynamical astronomy in their own right.

For his fundamental contributions to astronomy, reference systems and celestial mechanics, Victor Brumberg is an outstanding recipient of the 2008 Dirk Brouwer Award.