The 2009
Lennart
Nilsson Award is to be presented to American planetary scientist Carolyn
Porco and Iranian photographer and science journalist Babak A. Tafreshi in
recognition of their photographic work, which - each from its own
perspective - recalls mankind's place in the universe. The prize is the
world's most prestigious distinction in scientific and medical photography.
The annual Lennart Nilsson Award is
presented in honour of the legendary Swedish photographer, who has been working
with imagery at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm for decades. Like Lennart
Nilsson, this year's recipients, Carolyn Porco and Babak A. Tafreshi, have
captured worlds that are otherwise hidden from human sight.
The panel's citation reads as follows:
"Carolyn Porco combines the finest techniques of planetary
exploration and scientific research with aesthetic finesse and educational
talent. While her images, which depict the heavenly bodies of the Saturn system
with unique precision, serve as tools for the world's leading experts, they also
reveal the beauty of the universe in a manner that is an inspiration to one and
all."
"Babak A. Tafreshi's photographs reclaim a night sky that most
modern people have lost. He takes us to remote places where the stars still look
like they did at the dawn of mankind. His work calls to mind the beauty of the
universe and human life on our planet."
Starry Night of Cyrus (
by
Babak A. Tafreshi) - Pasargadae, Iran, August 2009
The Milky Way and the majestic
planet Jupiter shine above the tomb of Cyrus in Pasargadae; a
2500-year old World Heritage Site in southern Iran. Pasargadae was
the first capital of the Achaemenid Empire, the capital of
Cyrus the Great
(559-530 BC) and also his last resting place. At the height of its
power, the Achaemenid Empire encompassed spanned three continents,
as far west as Libya to nearly all Middle East, and to Central Asia.
Cyrus left an everlasting legacy on leadership as he respected the
customs and religions of the lands he conquered. He attributed his
success to "Diversity in counsel, unity in command." Babak Tafreshi/Dreamview.net
Carolyn Porco was born in 1953 in New York. She earned her PhD
in 1983 from the California Institute of Technology's Division of Geological and
Planetary Sciences. She is currently employed at the Space Science Institute in
Boulder Colorado where she leads CICLOPS, the laboratory where images from
NASA's and ESA's Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn are processed, captioned and
posted for public release. Carolyn Porco and her scientific colleagues have
published numerous groundbreaking scientific papers about Saturn and its rings
and moons, and have discovered six moons, several rings and jets of water ice
erupting from the south pole of Saturn's moon, Enceladus, all previously unknown
to astronomers. She has previously worked with the Voyager probe and imaged
Uranus and Neptune. Carolyn Porco is also a member of the group tasked with
taking pictures of Pluto when it is finally reached by the New Horizons probe in
2015.
Babak A. Tafreshi, photographer, science journalist and amateur
astronomer, was born in Teheran in 1978. His photographs from his expeditions
around the world have been published in foreign journals, on TV and on the NASA
website, and have featured in a number of international exhibitions. From 1997
to 2007 he was editor, and later editor-in-chief of the Iranian astronomy
magazine Nojum
(www.nojum.net).
Babak A. Tafreshi is a member of the board of advisors of Astronomers Without
Borders and a project coordinator for the International Year of Astronomy 2009.
He is also the creator and the driving force behind TWAN (The World At Night), a
project in which photographers from around the world capture images of night
skies as seen above notable landmarks of the planet.
The Lennart Nilsson Award was inaugurated in 1998 and is
administered by Karolinska Institutet. The university's president, Professor
Harriet Wallberg-Henriksson, serves as chairperson of the Lennart Nilsson Award
Foundation and takes part in the selection of the prize winners, who are awarded
SEK 100,000 (approx. USD 14,500). The names of this year's winners will be
announced at the Göteborg Book Fair in connection with a seminar entitled:
Making the invisible visible. The award ceremony will be held in the
Berwald Hall in Stockholm on 28 October to coincide with Karolinska Institutet's
installation ceremony for new professors. Lennart Nilsson himself will also
attend the festivities.
