The Bok Prize

The Astronomical Society of Australia and the Australian Academy of Science jointly sponsor a prize to encourage interest in Astronomy amongst undergraduate students in Australian universities. The prize is named to commemorate the energetic work of Bart Jan Bok in promoting the undergraduate and graduate study of astronomy in this country, during his term as Director of the Mount Stromlo Observatory.

The Prize consists of a cash grant of $250 and a bronze Medal. It is awarded to the senior undergraduate student submitting the best research report or substantial essay on an astronomical topic. The prize is awarded annually, and is usually presented at the Annual General Meeting of the Astronomical Society of Australia.

A request for submissions for the award in a given year is usually mailed out to a variety of Australian universities in August of that year, with the closing date for entries on 31 December of the same year.

Conditions of entry for the award are:

The Bok Prize in Astronomy will be awarded to the undergraduate student submitting the best research report or substantial essay on an astronomical topic.
A candidate must be an undergraduate student of a least two years standing (at 30 June during the year of the award) or an Honours year student at an Australian university, or have equivalent status.
Each entry must be accompanied by a statement from the candidate's lecturer or supervisor indicating the relationship of the submission to the student's course requirements, and a confidential statement on the originality of the submission.
The decision of the assessment panel for the Bok Prize in Astronomy is final (including any decision that no entry is of sufficient merit for the Prize to be awarded in a particular year).
Envelopes containing entries should be endorsed 'Bok Prize in Astronomy', and addressed to:
Dr John O'Byrne
Secretary, Astronomical Society of Australia
School of Physics
University of Sydney
N.S.W. 2006
Electronic copies of the report will be accepted, but a covering letter is still required.

List of Past Winners

(based on year in which the award was made. The work was completed in the previous year.)

1989 - Andrew Gray (U. of Sydney): For solar observations using the Molonglo radio telescope.
1990 - Robert Reinfrank (U. of Wollongong): For a CCD survey of bright southern galaxies.
1991 - Neal Turner (U. of Sydney): For work on the atmospheres of cool dwarf stars.
1992 - Kylie Waring (Monash U.): For photometry of stellar variations.
1993 - Sally Houghton (UNSW): For a study of methanol masers towards Sagittarius B2.
1994 - Arthur Street (U. of Sydney): For work on acceleration in type II solar radio bursts.
1995 - Michael Brown (U. of Melbourne): For a study of compond chrondule formation in meteorites.
1996 - Lisa Kewley (U. of Adelaide): Astrophysical Angular Correlations.
1997 - Jean-Pierre Macquart (U. of Sydney): Radio Propagation through Discrete Structures in the Interstellar Medium.
1998 - Malcolm Kennett (U. of Sydney): Neutrino Emission from a Magnetised Plasma.
1999 - Michael Murphy (UNSW): Variability of the Fine Structure Constant.
2000 - Josephine Brown (ANU): A photometric morphological and environmental study of the COLA galaxy southern sample.
2001 - Yeshe Fenner (ANU): Solving the Mystery of the Warm Ionised Medium.
2002 - no award
2003 - Darren Croton (RSAA): Clustering and void statistics of the 2dF galaxy redshift survey.
2004 - Stanislav Shabala (Tas): On the Evolution of HII regions.

The Award and Grants page of the ASA's Australian Astronomy web site has links to other sources of Awards and Grants relevant to ASA members.

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