George Petros Efstathiou is a British astrophysicist who was Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Cambridge from 1997 to 2022, where he was the first director of the Kavli Institute for Cosmology from 2008 to 2016.
15 Facts About George Efstathiou
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George Efstathiou is one of the most heavily cited astrophysicists; as of 2025, his 400 published papers had been cited over 130,000 times.
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George Efstathiou was born in London to Greek Cypriot immigrant parents who operated a fish and chips shop.
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George Efstathiou later gained admission to Keble College, Oxford to read Physics, having combined work at the family business with A Level studies.
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George Efstathiou carried out some of the first computer simulations of the formation of cosmic structure, and was awarded his PhD in 1979.
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George Efstathiou was a research assistant in the Astronomy Department of University of California, Berkeley from 1979 to 1980, then moved to the Institute of Astronomy at the University of Cambridge, holding research fellowships at King's College, Cambridge from 1980 to 1988.
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George Efstathiou was appointed Savilian Professor of Astronomy at the University of Oxford in 1988, and held a fellowship at New College, Oxford.
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George Efstathiou was head of astrophysics between 1988 and 1994.
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George Efstathiou returned to Cambridge in 1997 as Professor of Astrophysics and a fellow of King's College.
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George Efstathiou was director of the Institute of Astronomy between 2004 and 2008.
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George Efstathiou became the first director of the Kavli Institute for Cosmology in 2008.
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George Efstathiou has made a number of notable contributions to research in cosmology, including:.
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George Efstathiou was awarded the Maxwell Medal and Prize of the Institute of Physics in 1990.
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George Efstathiou received the Gruber Prize in Cosmology for 2011 jointly with Marc Davis, Carlos Frenk and Simon White, the Nemitsas Prize in Physics for 2013 and the Hughes Medal of the Royal Society in 2015.
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In 2022 George Efstathiou was awarded the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society, its highest honour, whose previous recipients include Albert Einstein, Edwin Hubble and Fred Hoyle.