Jose Ezquiaga receives the Lars Kann-Rasmussen Prize 2026
"For his groundbreaking work on gravitational physics, including the implications of gravitational wave observations for dark energy and tests of gravity, the formation of black holes in the early universe and the search for gravitationally lensed gravitational waves.”
At an award ceremony on February 24. Associate Professor Jose Ezquiaga from Center of Gravity received the Lars Kann-Rasmussen Prize for 2026. The Prize was presented to Jose Ezquiaga in Auditorium A, following speeches by Associate Dean of Research Lise Arleth, Deputy Head of Institute for Research Troels Haugbølle, and NBIA Director Poul Henrik Damgaard.
Jose Ezquiaga finished his undergraduate studies at the Autonomous University of Madrid in 2014 after having a spent an academic year as exchange student at the Niels Bohr Institute. A prestigious national PhD-fellowship from Spain led to his PhD-degree from Madrid in 2019. Jose Ezquiaga was NASA Einstein Fellow at University of Chicago 2019-22, Assistant Professor at the Niels Bohr Institute 2022-25, and Associate Professor since 2025. He received a Villum Young Investigator grant in 2022. He has received prizes for best PhD-thesis, and in 2025 he received the General Relativity and Gravitation Early Career Prize.
Already as a PhD-student, and during a research visit to Berkeley, Jose Ezquiaga together with a colleague wrote a paper on gravitational wave physics with fundamental impact. Based on the simultaneous detection of gravitational waves and electromagnetic signals from the close encounter of two neutron stars ripping themselves apart, he could demonstrate with very high accuracy that gravitational waves propagate with the same speed as that of light. This in addition allowed him to put very stringent bounds on alternative theories of gravity and alternative models for dark matter. Later, Jose Ezquiaga has, among many other topics, been laying out the ground work to be ready to detect the gravitational bending of gravitational waves when that opportunity soon arises.