Associate Professor Claudia Lagos, from ICRAR’s UWA node, has been awarded the 2025 Anne Green Prize by the Astronomical Society of Australia.
The Anne Green Prize recognises a significant advance or accomplishment by a mid-career scientist.
A/Prof Lagos received the prize for her work on SHARK, software that simulates galaxy formation, which has led to breakthroughs in our understanding of the complex physics that governs how galaxies form and change.
SHARK has already been used to address two unsolved problems in extragalactic astrophysics: the mysterious nature of highly dusty galaxies and how to explain the high abundance of very massive galaxies in the early Universe, when it appears too young for these galaxies to have formed.
“It’s a real honour to be recognised by my peers and the ASA for my contributions to galaxy evolution, and particularly for the impact our open-source software is having in the field,” A/Prof Lagos said.
“When we set out to develop Shark from scratch—together with software scientists and other astronomers at ICRAR—we couldn’t predict where it would take us.
“We weren’t sure the huge effort would pay off, but we believed a new tool was needed: one with more flexibility and more comprehensive physical modelling than ever before.
“It’s incredibly rewarding to see the breakthroughs Shark has enabled in understanding how massive and luminous galaxies formed in the early Universe.”
ICRAR Executive Director Simon Ellingsen congratulated A/Prof Lagos on her achievement.
“This prize is well deserved recognition of the significant impact of the work of Claudia and her team and the benefits of open source tools and the collaboration and innovation that they facilitate,” he said.
