Ondřej Pejcha is an astrophysicist at the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics of Charles University, where he currently leads his own research group. His work focuses on the evolution of binary star systems, and he has been awarded two ERC grants over the course of his career.

He completed his Master’s degree in theoretical physics at the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, Charles University, in 2008, and obtained his Ph.D. in astronomy from Ohio State University in 2013. He subsequently held positions at Princeton University until 2017 as a NASA Hubble Fellow and Lyman Spitzer Jr. Fellow. In September 2017, he returned to the Czech Republic to the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, Charles University, supported by the UK Primus programme, where he also completed his habilitation.

His research specialization includes binary stars, stellar mergers, neutron stars, black holes, supernovae, and transient phenomena, integrating numerical simulations, dynamical methods, and the modelling of astronomical data. He has made significant contributions to the study of binary evolution and common envelope processes, which are closely related to the formation of compact objects and sources of gravitational waves.

In 2018, he was awarded an ERC Starting Grant, and since summer 2025 he has been the principal investigator of an ERC Consolidator Grant. He is the author of approximately 70 publications. In 2019, he received the Neuron Prize for Young Scientists in Physics.