2020 Brouwer Award Winner - Lennart Lindegren

The American Astronomical Society's Division on Dynamical Astronomy (DDA) is pleased to announce that the 2020 recipient of the Dirk Brouwer Career Award is Professor Emeritus Lennart Lindegren of Lund University.

Professor Lindegren has made a profound impact on the fields of astrometry and celestial mechanics. In a career spent working as part of large collaborations, his personal contributions have been significant and far-reaching, not only pioneering new observational techniques but also solving extraordinarily complicated data-reduction and analysis challenges. He established the innovative methodology by which a map of the sky can be synthesized from telemetry from a scanning satellite, and he was central to the production of the Hipparcos, Gaia DR1, and Gaia DR2 catalogs, which have provided unprecedented sources of discovery and new understanding.

Having obtained his PhD at Lund University in 1980, Professor Lindegren went on to spend most of his professional life at Lund, where he was a much-appreciated member of the teaching staff and famous for explaining complex problems. He served as Director of Lund Observatory for six years and mentored numerous PhD students, many of whom have gone on to successful careers of their own.

Last, but by no means least, Professor Lindegren has devoted his career to the success of the Hipparcos and Gaia missions. The breadth and depth of his contributions are evidenced in the hundreds of technical notes written for the development, definition and optimization of these missions; his work is meticulous, rigorous, clear, and insightful. Most notably, he played a key role in ensuring the success of Hipparcos after it was left in an unsuitable orbit, and he has been a driving force behind Gaia from its inception to the present day. His work has changed our understanding of the universe at a fundamental level.

The Brouwer Award is given to Professor Lindegren to recognize and celebrate his outstanding contributions to the field of dynamical astronomy. The enduring legacy of his work is such that future generations of astronomers may owe their success, and even careers, to his remarkable contributions.

Professor Lindegren will be invited to give a lecture at the 52nd annual DDA meeting.