The 2012 Institute of Physics Gravitational Physics Group Thesis Prize, sponsored by Classical and Quantum Gravity (CQG), will be made for excellence in postgraduate research and communication skills in gravitational physics. All members of the IOP Gravitational Physics Group who passed their PhD viva voce exam between 30 September 2010 and 31 December 2012 are entitled to enter the competition.

Note that the viva period for eligible candidates is longer than in previous years.

The winner will be awarded £500 and they will be invited to submit a paper to CQG based on the winning thesis which, if accepted, will be made a ’select article’ in CQG. Furthermore, the winner will be given the opportunity to present their work at one of the UK BritGrav meetings.

Anyone (student or otherwise) can nominate a candidate (including the candidate themselves). If you have someone in mind, please send an email to the IOP Gravitational Physics Group secretary (David Burton at d.burton[AT]lancaster.ac.uk) containing the candidate’s contact details and the committee will encourage them to enter the competition. The candidate must be a member of the IOP Gravitational Physics Group, and will be asked to provide their IOP membership number.

Please note that the student’s external PhD examiner must be willing to comment on the student’s research, quality of the student’s thesis and the student’s ability to cogently communicate their work (evidenced by their viva performance and/or seminars). Students are advised to consult their external examiner before entering the competition.

I am delighted to announce that the 2011 IOP Gravitational Physics Group’s thesis prize, co-sponsored by Classical and Quantum Gravity, has been awarded to Dr John Miller, currently at Australian National University (ANU), for his excellent work on non-Gaussian beams and optomechanical parametric instabilities in gravitational wave detectors and their impact on designing future gravitational wave detectors.

Dr Miller completed his thesis at Glasgow University under the supervision of Prof. Ken Strain and Prof. Norna Robertson

The thesis is available to download from Glasgow University’s website.
http://theses.gla.ac.uk/1869/

Details of the prize, including nomination instructions for the 2012 prize, can be found at the Gravitational Physics Group’s web page.
http://www.iop.org/activity/groups/subject/gp/prize/page_40694.html

Sincerely

Clifford M Will
Editor in Chief
Classical and Quantum Gravity

Closing date for nominations: 31 October 2011

The 2011 Gravitational Physics Group Thesis Prize, sponsored by Classical and Quantum Gravity (CQG), will be made for excellence in postgraduate research and communication skills in gravitational physics. All members of the IOP Gravitational Physics Group who passed their PhD viva voce exam between 30 September 2009 and 1 October 2010 are entitled to enter the competition. The winner will be awarded £500 and they will be invited to submit a paper to CQG based on the winning thesis which, if accepted, will be made a ’select article’ in CQG. Furthermore, the winner will be given the opportunity to present their work at one of the UK BritGrav meetings.

Anyone (student or otherwise) can nominate a candidate (including the candidate themselves). If you have someone in mind, please send an email to the IOP Gravitational Physics Group secretary (David Burton at d.burton-at-lancaster.ac.uk) containing the candidate’s contact details and the committee will encourage them to enter the competition. The candidate must be a member of the IOP Gravitational Physics Group, and will be asked to provide their IOP membership number.

Please note that the student’s external PhD examiner must be willing to comment on the student’s research, quality of the student’s thesis and the student’s ability to cogently communicate their work (evidenced by their viva performance and/or seminars). Students are advised to consult their external examiner before entering the competition.

For information on how to enter the competition please click ‘Group Prize’ on the IOP Gravitational Physics Group web page http://gp.iop.org/

It gives me great pleasure to announce the award of the 2010 IOP Gravitational Physics Group’s Thesis Prize to Dr Barry Wardell of the Albert Einstein Institute at Golm. As Editor-in-Chief of Classical and Quantum Gravity, which co-sponsors the prize, I am delighted to see it going to such a deserving recipient.

The award is made for the development of ground-breaking computational techniques for obtaining highly accurate expressions for Green functions on curved spacetime.

Dr Wardell completed his thesis at University College Dublin in Ireland. The thesis: “Green functions and radiation reaction from a spacetime perspective” is available for download from the ArXiv: http://arxiv.org/abs/0910.2634

The prize will be awarded at IOP’s Nuclear and Particle Physics Divisional (NPPD) conference at Glasgow University on 6 April. Dr Wardell will receive the prize shortly before his talk at 3.30pm in the Humanities Lecture Theatre.

Yours sincerely

Clifford M Will
Editor in Chief
Classical and Quantum Gravity

Second call for nominations 2010

Closing date for nominations: 17th December 2010

The 2010 Gravitational Physics Group Thesis Prize, sponsored by Classical and Quantum Gravity (CQG), will be made for excellence in postgraduate research and communication skills in gravitational physics. All members of the IOP Gravitational Physics Group who passed their PhD viva voce exam between 30 September 2008 and 1 October 2009 are entitled to enter the competition. The winner will be awarded £500 and they will be invited to submit a paper to CQG based on the winning thesis which, if accepted, will be made a ‘select article’ in CQG. Furthermore, the winner will be given the opportunity to present their work at one of the UK ‘BritGrav’ meetings.

Anyone (student or otherwise) can nominate a candidate (including the candidate themselves). If you have someone in mind, please send an email to the IOP Gravitational Physics Group secretary (David Burton at d.burton-at-lancaster.ac.uk) containing the candidate’s contact details and the committee will encourage them to enter the competition. The candidate must be a member of the IOP Gravitational Physics Group, and will be asked to provide their IOP membership number.

Please note that the student’s external PhD examiner must be willing to comment on the student’s research, quality of the student’s thesis and the student’s ability to cogently communicate their work (evidenced by their viva performance and/or seminars). Students are advised to consult their external examiner before entering the competition.

For information on how to enter the competition please click ‘Group Prize’ on the IOP Gravitational Physics Group web page http://gp.iop.org/