First Announcement of 2009 Prize
The Gravitational Wave International Committee (GWIC) was formed to promote international collaboration and cooperation in the construction, operation and use of gravitational wave detection facilities world-wide. To this end, GWIC has established an annual prize for the outstanding Ph.D. thesis based on research in gravitational waves (http://gwic.ligo.org/thesisprize/).
Members of the broader gravitational wave community are invited to nominate students who have performed notable research on any aspect of gravitational waves science. Theses will be judged on 1) originality and creativity of the research, 2) importance to the field of gravitational waves and gravitational wave detection, broadly interpreted, and 3) clarity of presentation in the thesis.
Eligibility: The award is made on a calendar year basis. Theses should have been accepted by their institutions between January 1, 2009 and December 31, 2009 to qualify for consideration. It is expected that many of the nominations will come from the member projects of GWIC, but this is not a requirement.
A committee representing the GWIC member projects will evaluate the nominations and select the winner. Nominated theses may be in any language – the selection committee will use consultants to help evaluate theses if they do not possess the required linguistic breadth. The selection committee will make the final determinations about eligibility.
The GWIC Thesis Prize will be presented at the 19th International Conference on General Relativity and Gravitation (GR19) (http://www.gr19.com/) in Mexico City, from 5-9 July 2010. The recipient will receive a certificate of recognition and a prize of $1,000.
Nominations: A Call for Nominations will be issued approximately November 1, 2009 with instructions about how to submit a nomination.