Johns Hopkins Astrophysicist Elected to National Academy of Sciences

Office of News and Information - Johns Hopkins University - 901 South Bond Street, Suite 540 - Baltimore, Maryland 21231 - Phone: 443-287-9960 - Fax: 443-287-9920 April 28, 2009 - Johns Hopkins Media Contact: Lisa De Nike - 443-287-9960, Lde [a] jhu (p) edu - Space Telescope Media Contact: Ray Villard - 410-338-4514, Villard [a] stsci (p) edu - Adam Riess was among 72 scientists elected today to membership in the National Academy of Sciences at the organization's 146th annual meeting, held in Washington, D.C. Riess, a professor in the Henry A. Rowland Department of Physics and Astronomy in the Zanvyl Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, joins 20 other Johns Hopkins faculty members currently in the Academy, an honorary society that advises the government on scientific matters. Riess also is an astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute . An astrophysicist, Riess, 39, was a leader in discovering that dark energy, a mysterious and still unexplained force, is driving the universe to expand at an ever-faster rate, overcoming the effects of gravity. He was first author on a paper published in 1998 by one of two competing groups of scientists that made the discovery; his innovative approach involved comparisons of the "redshift" of rate Type Ia supernovas spotted at varying distances from Earth in the farthest reaches of space.