Thibault Damour

-|binary pulsars: first complete computation of radiation damping effects; derivation of a relativistic timing formula; first strong-field tests of Einstein's theory of General Relativity (with J.H. Taylor).~-|black holes: introduction of the membrane viewpoint in black hole physics; discovery of the Ohm-like (and Navier-Stokes-like) equations describing the surface resistivity (viscosity) of black holes.~-|gravitational waves, relativistic 2-body problem: improved methods for computing the dynamics of binary systems and their emission of gravitational radiation; bursts of gravitational radiation emitted by cosmic (super)strings.~-|String cosmology: new cosmological mechanisms (cosmological attractor for a dilaton field, k-inflation); discovery of hidden hyperbolic Kac-Moody structures in supergravity and superstring theories.~