As publishers of Astronomy & Astrophysics, EDP Sciences is very pleased to learn that Françoise Combes, one of the associate editors of Astronomy & Astrophysics, has been awarded the CNRS 2020 Gold Medal. Françoise is professor at the Collège de France and chair in “Galaxies and Cosmology”. She is also an astrophysicist at the Paris Observatory and a member of the Academy of Sciences.

This is a significant achievement. Not only does the CNRS, the French research agency, only award one Gold Medal a year across all academic fields, but, apart from the physicists Alain Brillet et Thibault Damour who received the Gold Medal for their contribution to the detection of gravitational waves in 2017, the last recipient in astronomy was Evry Schatzman in 1983. Previous Gold Medal recipients include most post-1950 French Nobel Prize laureates, so there is every reason to extend our congratulations for this very special moment.

This Gold Medal builds on the CNRS Silver Medal Françoise received in 2001. She has been an associate editor of Astronomy & Astrophysics since 2003, so it is our great honour and pleasure to work closely with Françoise on one of the leading original research journals in its field.

Read the CNRS article “The astrophysicist Françoise Combes receives the CNRS 2020 Gold Medal” or read the CNRS press release.