Draft:Richard McMahon (Astronomer)

Richard McMahon (born 1959) is a professor of astronomy at the Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge. . From 2017-2022 he was the Director and Head of Department of the Institute of Astronomy.

McMahon was born in County Tyrone, studied for a BSc in physics at Queens University Belfast, and completed his PhD at at the Institute of Astronomy.

McMahon's research primarily involves studying galaxies in the distant universe.

He is a founding member of the Supernova Cosmology Project, which used observations of distant supernovae to discover the acceleration of the Universe. Saul Perlmutter, the leader of the project, was awarded the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics for this discovery.

McMahon was jointly awarded the Gruber Prize in Cosmology in 2007, and the Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics in 2015.