Lancelot M. Berkeley − New York Community Trust Prize for Meritorious Work in Astronomy

The Lancelot M. Berkeley − New York Community Trust Prize for Meritorious Work in Astronomy is awarded annually for highly meritorious work in advancing the science of astronomy during the previous year. No restrictions are placed on a candidate's citizenship or country of residency. The prize may shared by up to three individuals and individuals are eligible to receive the prize more than once. The work being recognized must have been published in a peer-reviewed journal in the calendar year prior to the AAS prize nomination deadline. The prize consists of a lecture and a monetary prize, which varies based on available funds and is split evenly between the winners of the award, plus travel expenses to attend an AAS meeting within 12 months to present the prize lecture.

The Vice-Presidents of the Society, in consultation with the AAS Editor in Chief selects the Berkeley prize winner(s) for meritorious work published within the last year; nominations are not accepted for the Berkeley prize. The prize is supported by a grant from the New York Community Trust.

Lancelot M. Berkeley - New York Community Trust Prize Committee

2024 - Wen-fai Fong

For her leadership of foundational work that is greatly advancing our understanding of explosive astrophysical transients and their host galaxies.

2023 - Gaia Collaboration

For enabling a transformative, multidimensional map of the Milky Way. Since its launch in 2013, the ESA’s Gaia space telescope has recorded stellar positions, distances, colors, and proper motions for nearly two billion stars in our galaxy.

2022 - CHIME/FRB team

For its dramatic progress on understanding fast radio bursts — brief and powerful flashes of radio waves with enigmatic origins — using observations from the CHIME radio telescope in British Columbia.

2021 - Sherry H. Suyu

For her leadership of the H0LiCOW collaboration, which is measuring the cosmic expansion rate using gravitationally lensed quasars.

2020 - Sheperd S. Doeleman

For his scientific contributions to, and his leadership of, the Event Horizon Telescope, a planet-scale array of ground-based radio telescopes stretching from Hawaii to Europe and from Greenland to the South Pole.

2019 – Elena Aprile

For her leadership of the XENON project and its groundbreaking search for the particle that is thought to make up the dark matter in the halo of the Milky Way Galaxy.

2018 – Dennis Coyne

Co-awarded for his leadership role in the development of the Advanced LIGO detectors, which have opened a new window on the universe.

2018 – Peter Fritschel

Co-awarded for his leadership role in the development of the Advanced LIGO detectors, which have opened a new window on the universe.

2018 – David Shoemaker

Co-awarded for his leadership role in the development of the Advanced LIGO detectors, which have opened a new window on the universe.

2017 – Garth Illingworth

For his major research programs using innovative tools and techniques to investigate the formation, history, evolution, and nature of the most distant and earliest galaxies.

2016 – Jan Tauber

For helping to lead the Planck mission to its groundbreaking success in delivering detailed maps of the cosmic microwave background and precise values of key cosmological parameters.
Year Recipient(s) Citation
2015 David Weinberg For his paper "The Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey of SDSS-III," written with numerous coauthors and published in the Astronomical Journal in 2013.
2014 James Lemen Dr. James Lemen was the leader in the design and construction of the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly for the Solar Dynamics Observatory, which has enabled forefront advances into understanding of solar activity. He is awarded the Berkeley Prize for his widely cited paper entitled “The Atmospheric Imaging Assembly on the Solar Dynamics Observatory.”
2013 Eiichiro Komatsu For advancing the field of cosmology by using a combination of 7 years of WMAP data together with distances from baryon acoustic oscillations and H0 to place new constraints on the Standard LambdaCDM model. This work was published in 2011, ApJS, 192, 18 with 20 co-authors and was the most highly cited astronomy paper in 2012.
2012 Linda J. Tacconi For her work on cold gas in massive star-forming galaxies in the young universe.
2011 William J. Borucki & David G. Koch For the discovery of new worlds and for taking a major step in determining the extent of life in our galaxy.