Dr. Will Percival, distinguished research chair in Astrophysics and director of the Waterloo Centre for Astrophysics, has been recognized as a 2025 Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. His research focuses on cosmology, large-scale structure and data analysis methods in astrophysics.
For the last 25 years, he has worked at the forefront of galaxy survey analyses, developing and applying the tools, particularly one called Baryon Acoustic Oscillations, that enable robust measurements of the evolution of the Universe. He currently has leading roles in two ongoing international cosmological experiments: he serves as co-Spokesperson for the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument, a ground-based survey of galaxies being undertaken using the Mayall telescope, and on the Science Coordination Group for the Euclid Consortium, an international collaboration supporting the European Space Agency’s Euclid satellite mission, which launched on July 1, 2023.
As of August 2025, Percival has authored or co-authored more than 500 peer-reviewed publications, which have collectively been cited more than 90,000 times (Astrophysics Data System). His h-index of 132 reflects his substantial impact across cosmology and astrophysics.
Learn more on Waterloo News.