Eric Priest

Eric Priest completed his PhD thesis with T. G. Cowling at Leeds in 1969, having moved to a tenured position at St Andrews University in 1968. He gradually built up an internationally renowned Solar MHD group there and is now a highly active Emeritus Professor. He has edited fifteen books and written over 450 research papers. His book Solar Magnetohydrodynamics (1982) became a standard text in the field and has been completely rewritten from scratch to be reborn as Magnetohydrodynamics of the Sun. Honours include being elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (2002) and being awarded the Hale Prize of the American Astronomical Society (2002) and the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society (2009).