Reuters, New Hampshire :
Brazilian physicist and astronomer Marcelo Gleiser has been awarded the 2019 Templeton Prize, worth $1.4 million, for his work blending science and spirituality.
Gleiser, 60, is the first Latin American to win the award which honors “a living person who has made an exceptional contribution to affirming life’s spiritual dimension,” the U.S.-based John Templeton Foundation said in a statement on Tuesday.
A professor at Dartmouth College, New Hampshire, Gleiser has written best-selling books and appeared on numerous TV and radio shows, discussing science as a spiritual quest to understand the origins of the universe and life on Earth.
Previous winners of the award, started in 1972 by late global investor Sir John Templeton, include the Dalai Lama and Mother Teresa. In 2018, it was won by King Abdullah II of Jordan.
“I will work harder than ever to spread my message of global unity and planetary awareness to a wider audience,” Gleiser said in a statement on the award issued by Dartmouth.
Gleiser studies the interface between what he calls the “physics of the very large” and “the physics of the very small” to reconstruct the beginning of the universe, Dartmouth said.
