Roger Blandford is the Luke Blossom Professor in the School of Humanities and Sciences at Stanford University. A renowned theoretical physicist and specialist in black holes, white dwarfs, gamma ray bursts, gravitational lensing and the evolution of the Universe. He is best known for his seminal work on black holes, establishing the Blandford-Znajek Process, explaining how energy can be extracted from a rotating black hole, producing jets of plasma that travel near light speed.

Blandford taught physics and astronomy at Caltech for more than 25 years before coming to Stanford University in 2003 as the inaugural director of KIPAC. He received his BA, MA and PhD degrees at the University of Cambridge. Among his notable recognitions, he is a Fellow of the Royal Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a Member of the National Academy of Sciences. In 2010, Blandford chaired the National Academies' Decadal Survey in Astronomy & Astrophysics and in 2016 he shared in the Crafoord Prize for Astronomy.