Mary Elizabeth Uhl Prize

For outstanding scholarly achievement by a graduate student close to finishing their dissertation in Astronomy or in Physics with preference to Astronomy.

2024

Andrea Antoni (Graduate) (Astronomy)

Chris Moeckel (Graduate) (Earth and Planetary Sciences)

2023

Casey Lam (Graduate) (Astronomy)

Emily Liepold (Graduate) (Physics)

2022

Philip Kempski (Graduate) (Astronomy)

2021

Kareem El-Badry (Graduate) (Astronomy)

Wren Seuss (Graduate) (Astronomy)

2020

Nicholas Kern (Graduate) (Astronomy)

2019

Sean Ressler (Graduate) (Physics)

2018

Jason Wang (Graduate) (Astronomy)
Daniel Goldstein (Graduate) (Astronomy)

2017

Katherine de Kleer (Graduate) (Astronomy)
Eve Jihyun Lee (Graduate) (Astronomy)

2016

Josiah Schwab (Graduate) (Astronomy)
Daniel Lecoanet (Graduate) (Astronomy)

2015

Erik Petigura (Graduate) (Astronomy)

2014

Charles “Chat” Hull (Graduate) (Astronomy)
Advisor: Carl Heiles

Dick Plambeck

Chat Hull’s research is focused on polarization measurements of the radio continuum and spectral lines to learn more about star formation in molecular clouds. Before starting as a Jansky Fellow at Harvard, he will be taking a cross-country road trip across the northern U.S. and southern Canada, hoping he will arrive at Harvard when the first snow falls.

Michael McCourt (Graduate) (Astronomy)
Advisor: Eliot Quataert

Mike’s thesis includes many original contributions to our understanding of the physics of galaxy cluster plasmas. For example, he developed an analytical and numerical understanding of how thermal instabilities regulate the rate at which cold gas flows to small radii, fueling star formation and black hole growth in the centers of clusters. This likely provides a key to understanding why cluster plasmas have the properties they do. Mike will be an ITC postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard.

2013

Jonathan Pober (Graduate) (Astronomy)
Advisor: Aaron Parsons

Donald Backer

Jonnie initially worked with Professor Don Backer on PAPER: Precision Array for Probing the Epoch of Reionization. When Backer passed away in 2010, new faculty member Aaron Parsons essentially became Don’s successor and as a result, became Jonnie’s advisor. Jonnie received a NSF Astronomy and Astrophysics Postdoctoral Fellowship, which he took to the University of Washington. Pober completed his Ph.D. in 2013 and is currently a NSF Astronomy and Astrophysics Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Washington, Department of Physics.

2012

Andrew Siemion (Graduate) (Astronomy)
Dan Werthimer

Andrew Siemion’s research focused on designing instruments and experiments to detect rare and novel radio phenomena, specifically the detection and analysis of coherent sources of electromagnetic emission. Andrew is heavily involved in developing new computing technology and has organized and taught digital instrumentation workshops at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics in Taiwan, and the National Astronomical Observatories in China. He currently holds a joint research position with UC Berkeley and ASTRON, the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy.

Nicholas McConnell (Graduate) (Astronomy)
Advisor: Chung-Pei Ma

James Graham

Nicholas McConnell’s research measured stellar motions in the Brightest Cluster Galaxies (BCGs) and compared them to models of galaxies to determine the mass of the central supermassive black hole in each galaxy. Working in collaboration with advisors Chung-Pei Ma and James Graham, he discovered two black holes with record-breaking masses of at least 10 billion suns. After completing his Ph.D. at Berkeley, McConnell accepted the Beatrice Watson Parrent Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Hawai’i, where he is continuing his research.

2011

Daniel Perley (Graduate) (Astronomy)
Daniel Perley was selected to receive the 2011 Mary Elizabeth Uhl Prize at commencement ceremonies last May. This annual prize is awarded to a graduate student in Astronomy (or Physics, with a preference in Astronomy) for outstanding scholarly achievement. Perley’s thesis project was based around a six year observing campaign using the Keck telescopes to study the properties of gamma-ray burst host galaxies and their connection with dust-obscured star formation in the early Universe. After completing his Ph.D. at Berkeley, Perley moved to Caltech to begin postdoctoral work as a Hubble Fellow.

2010

Onsi Fakhouri (Astronomy)
Advisor: Chung-Pei Ma

Onsi Fakhouri investigated how galaxies and their host dark matter halos were assembled in a universe composed of dark matter and dark energy. He analyzed more than 100 million objects in the largest cosmological simulations performed to date and quantified the rate at which galaxies merged with each other to form bigger galaxies. Onsi’s thesis work was published in seven journal articles and was a tour de force in the study of the growths of dark matter halos.

2009

Aaron Robert Parsons (Astronomy)
Brian David Metzger (Physics)

2008

Ruth Murray-Clay (Astronomy)
Ryan Foley (Astronomy)

2007

John Johnson (Astronomy)

2006

Marshall D. Perrin (Astronomy)

2005

Mark Krumholtz (Physics)
Josh Simon (Astronomy)

2004

Alison Coil (Astronomy)

2003

Chao-Lin Kuo (Physics)

2002

Anatoly Spitkovsky (Physics)
Henry Roe (Astronomy)

2001

Evan Scannapieco (Physics)
Jonathan Tan (Astronomy)

2000

Douglas Leonard (Astronomy)
Jeffery Newman (Astronomy)
Tony Wong (Astronomy)

1999

Douglas Paul Finkbeiner (Physics)
Michael C. Liu (Physics)

1998

Nancy Levinson (Astronomy)

1997

Geoffrey Copeland Bower (Astronomy)
Craig Anthony Sosin (Physics)

1996

Rosa Gonzalez (Astronomy)

1995

Wayne Hu (Physics)

1994

Michael Brown (Astronomy)
Luis Ho (Astronomy)

1993

Yves Gallant (Physics)

1992

Michael Richmond

1991

Joseph Shields (Astronomy)
David Mitchell (Astronomy)

1990

Bon Chul Koo (Astronomy)
William Reach (Astronomy)

1989

Frank Bertoldi (Physics)

1988

Michael Strauss (Physics)
Shoba Veeraraghavan (Astronomy)

1987

Fred Adams (Physics)
Albert Stebbins III (Physics)

1986

Mark Hurwitz (Astronomy)
Susana Lizano (Astronomy)

1985

Christopher Martin (Physics)

1984

Stanislav Djorgovski (Astronomy)

1983

Robert Mathieu (Astronomy)
Jean Turner (Astronomy)