Prizes Awarded by the American Physical Society

This list is a list of prizes awarded by the APS for which astronomers are likely to be eligible. Some recent astronomers who have won the prize are listed also. More details are available on the APS web pages.

APS Awards

  • Lilienfeld Award -- science + lecturing skills to diverse audiences - Guth, Schramm, Thorne, Turner, Hawking
  • Bethe -- nuclear astrophysics etc - Bahcall, Salpeter
  • Bonner -- nuclear physics - Ray Davis, GE Brown
  • JC Maxwell -- plasmas - Russell Kulsrud
  • Plyler -- molecular spectroscopy - Bill Klemperer, Gerhard Herzberg, Richard Saykally
  • Maria Goepppert-Mayer -- woman less than 10 years post PhD - Judith Young, Ewine Van Dishoeck, Jacqueline Hewitt, Andrea Ghez (curiously all astronomy winners are radio observers)
  • Wheatley -- contributions to development of physics in the 3rd world - no astronomers yet.
  • Szilard -- physics for the public good - John Simpson