Overview
A generous donation from Professor Paul Murdin has allowed the Institute of Astronomy to establish an annual Murdin Prize for the best published journal paper produced by a current Ph.D. student.
Students who are within three years of the start of their Ph.D. are eligible for the prize. PhD CDT students are also eligible, providing the papers have been accepted no later than 31st January in their final year. A committee assesses submissions and results are usually announced by the middle of September.
Awardees
2023 - Jointly awarded to:
- Adam Dillamore - Stellar halo substructure generated by bar resonances
- Måns Holmberg - A First Look at CRIRES+: Performance Assessment and Exoplanet Spectroscopy
- Calvin Preston - A non-linear solution to the S8 tension II: Analysis of DES Year 3 Cosmic Shear
2022 - Jointly awarded to:
- Sean Jordan - Proposed energy-metabolisms cannot explain the atmospheric chemistry of Venus
- Chiara Scardoni - Inward and outward migration of massive planets: moving towards a stalling radius
- Julia Sisk-Reynes - New constraints on light axion-like particles using Chandra transmission grating spectroscopy of the powerful cluster-hosted quasar H1821+643
2021 - Jointly awarded to:
- Roger de Belsunce - Inference of the optical depth to reionization from low multipole temperature and polarisation Planck data
- Andrew Everall - Completeness of the Gaia-verse - IV. The astrometry spread function of Gaia DR2
- Zephyr Penoyre - Binary Deviations from Signal Object Astrometry
- Rosie Talbot - Blandford-Znajek jets in galaxy formation simulations: method and implementation
2020 - Jointly awarded to:
- Daniel Muthukrishna - RAPID: Early Classification of Explosive Transients Using Deep Learning
- Anjali Piette - Considerations for Atmospheric Retrieval of High-Precision Brown Dwarf Spectra
- Amy Rankine - BAL and non-BAL quasars: continuum, emission, and absorption properties establish a common parent sample
- Luis Welbanks - Mass–Metallicity Trends in Transiting Exoplanets from Atmospheric Abundances of H2O, Na, and K
2019 - Jointly awarded to:
- Sophie Koudmani - Fast and energetic AGN-driven outflows in simulated dwarf galaxies” Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 484, Issue 2, p.2047-2066 April 2019
- Inigo Zubeldia - Cosmological constraints from Planck galaxy clusters with CMB lensing mass bias calibration
2018 - Jointly awarded to:
- Nicholas Henden - The FABLE simulations: A Feedback Model for Galaxies, Groups and Clusters
- Peter Kosec - Evidence for a Variable Ultrafast Outflow in the Newly Discovered Ultraluminous Pulsar NGC 300 ULX-1
- GyuChul Myeong - Discovery of New Retrograde Substructures: the Shards of w Centauri?
2017 - Jointly awarded to:
- Adam Jermyn - Tidal heating and stellar irradiation of Hot Jupiters
- Ryan MacDonald - HD 209458b in New Light: Evidence of Nitrogen Chemistry, Patchy Clouds and Sub-Solar Water
- Bjoern Soergel - Detection of the kinematic Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect with DES Year 1 and SPT
2016 – Jointly awarded to:
- Sebastian Marino – Exocometary gas in the HD 181327 debris ring
- Gabriel Torrealba – The feeble giant. Discovery of a large and diffuse Milky Way dwarf galaxy in the constellation of Crater
2015
2014 – Jointly awarded to:
- Thomas Collett - Cosmological Constraints from the double source plane lens SDSSJ0946+1006 arXiv:1403.5278
- Tiago Costa - The environment of bright QSOs at z ˜ 6: star-forming galaxies and X-ray emission. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 439, Issue 2, p.2146-2174