IAU PhD Prize to Recognise Excellence in Astrophysics

The IAU PhD Prize recognises outstanding scientific achievement in astrophysics around the world. Each IAU Division has, once a year, the opportunity to award its own prize to the candidate it feels has carried out the most remarkable work in the previous year (i.e. a PhD Thesis which has been defended between the 16 December in the previous year, and 15 December this year). Theses which are in preparation or submitted, but not yet defended by the deadline of a given year will have to be submitted the following year.

PhD prize winners receive registration to attend the next IAU General Assembly. Certificates will be awarded at Division Days, where the winners may also be invited to present their thesis work.

Candidates are required to submit: an abstract of their thesis that is suitable for public consumption; a 1500-word thesis summary; three letters of recommendation (including one from the PhD advisor); and a CV. The winner of each Division will be decided by the Division’s own standards and methods — guided by the Division Steering Committee — and possibly with corroborating external consultation or additional letters of recommendation.

The IAU PhD Prize is open to candidates from any country, regardless of whether the country has an IAU National Membership. On top of this, a separate prize may be awarded to eligible applicants who conducted their PhD research under adverse conditions. Applicants interested in being considered for this PhD prize-at-large are required to submit a contextual justification of no longer than 250 words to allow the assessment panel to determine their eligibility. (Please indicate whether this justification must remain confidential to the assessment panel.) If suitable candidates are identified, the PhD prize-at-large will be awarded based on scientific merit.

The deadline for all applications is 15 December, 11:59 PM (UTC+1) every year, to include all applications since the previous year’s deadline. The application form is available here: https://www.iau.org/submissions/phd-prize/