The Shaw Prize Foundation in Hong Kong has announced the recipients of the 2021 Shaw Prizes in astronomy, life sciences and medicine, and mathematical sciences.

Established in 2002, the Shaw Prizes honor individuals who have achieved distinguished and significant advances and those who have made outstanding contributions in academic and scientific research. Each prize includes a cash award of $1.2 million.

The 2021 Shaw Prize in Astronomy will be shared by Victoria M. Kaspi, professor of physics and director of the McGill Space Institute at McGill University in Montreal, and Chryssa Kouveliotou, professor and chair of the Department of Physics at George Washington University, in recognition of contributions to the understanding of magnetars, a class of highly magnetized neutron stars that are linked to a wide range of spectacular, transient astrophysical phenomena.

The Shaw Prize in Life Science and Medicine was awarded to Scott D. Emr, director of the Weill Institute for Cell and Molecular Biology at Cornell University, in recognition of the discovery of the ESCRT (Endosomal Sorting Complex Required for Transport) pathway, which is essential in diverse processes involving membrane biology, including cell division, cell-surface receptor regulation, viral dissemination, and nerve axon pruning.

And the Shaw Prize in Mathematical Sciences will be shared by Jean-Michel Bismut, emeritus professor at the Université Paris-Saclay, and Jeff Cheeger, Silver Professor of Mathematics at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at New York University, in recognition of their transformative insights into modern geometry.