Rate My Professor Adam Amara

Professor Adam Amara is Head of the School of Mathematics and Physics in the Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences at the University of Surrey. He is Founding Director of the Surrey Space Institute and Chief Scientist at the UK Space Agency. Amara earned his PhD in Astrophysics from the University of Cambridge in 2005 with a dissertation titled "Quantitative Cosmology: Applying N-body Simulations to Gravitational Lensing." His career includes postdoctoral research at ETH Zurich, a position as Professor and Director of the Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation at the University of Portsmouth, and his current leadership roles at Surrey since around 2022.

Amara's research specializations lie in observational cosmology, gravitational lensing, dark matter, dark energy, and exoplanet detection. He has contributed significantly to the Euclid space telescope for dark energy studies and the Dark Energy Survey, co-developing PynPoint, an open-source tool for high-contrast exoplanet imaging. Key publications include "Optimal surveys for weak-lensing tomography" (Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 2007), "A halo model for cosmological neutral hydrogen: abundances and clustering" (Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 2017), his PhD monograph "Quantitative Cosmology: Applying N-body Simulations to Gravitational Lensing" (2005), and "Euclid: High-precision imaging astrometry and photometry from Early Release Observations" (Astronomy & Astrophysics, 2024). With more than 22,600 citations on Google Scholar, Amara's work has profoundly impacted cosmology. As Chief Scientist, he oversees strategy in astronomy, astrophysics, planetary science, solar physics, and space weather, fostering international partnerships. He engages in public outreach via lectures like the Queen's Lecture 2025 "Cosmic Origins and Alien Worlds."