Stephen Hawking (was born January 8, 1942, Oxford, UK - died March 14, 2018, Cambridge, UK) is an English theoretical physicist, cosmologist and astrophysicist, writer, director of research at the Center for Theoretical Cosmology at the University of Cambridge. Author of a number of scientific papers, including joint work with Roger Penrose on gravitational singularity theorems in the framework of general relativity and the theoretical prediction of black holes emitting radiation, often referred to as Hawking radiation. Hawking was the first to present a cosmological theory that combined the concepts of general relativity and quantum mechanics.