Rao Prize

The three Rao Prizes for the most outstanding student talks at the 2002 meeting will be presented. The winners are Sandhya Gopalakrishnan, The Ohio State University; Patrice Theule, Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne; Wilton Virgo, Arizona State University.

The Rao Prize was created by a group of spectroscopists who, as graduate students, benefitted from the emphasis on graduate student participation, which has been a unique characteristic of the Symposium.
This coming June three more Rao Prizes will be awarded. In order to be eligible for the Rao Prize, a student must (i) be primary author of the work being presented; (ii) be the actual presenter of the talk; (iii) never have competed for the Rao Prize prior to this year; and (iv) not have completed a Ph.D. thesis prior to March 1, 2003. If a student wishes to compete for the Rao Prize, he or she should indicate this in the comment area of the abstract (due by March 1) for the talk they wish to be judged and send a letter from the research supervisor certifying that the student meets all four of the above requirements. This letter of certification may be a simple email message addressed to Terry A. Miller (mss@www.asc.ohio-state.edu/miller.104/molspect/). The letter should identify the talk abstract by its acceptance number (when available) which furnished by return email to those submitting electronically. The letter of certification is not a nomination letter and will not be considered by the prize judges.

Rao Prize winners and their co-authors are invited to submit articles to the Journal of Molecular Spectroscopy which are based on the research described in their talks. After passing the normal review process, each article will appear in the Journal with a caption identifying the paper with a talk that won the Rao Prize

The award is administered by a Prize Committee co-chaired by Arlan Mantz, Connecticut College, and Brenda Winnewisser, Ohio State University and comprised of Kevin Lehmann, Princeton University; John Muenter, University of Rochester; Michael Heaven, Emory University; and Angela R. Hight Walker, NIST. Any questions or suggestions about the Prize should be addressed to the Committee. Anyone (especially post-docs) willing to serve on a panel of judges should contact Arlan Mantz (e-mail: awman@conncoll.edu).


Past RAO Prize Winners
Year Winners University
1991 David Ferguson The Ohio State University
1991 Elizabeth Piocos University of Cincinnati
1991 Eric S.J. Robles The Ohio State University
1992 Toni Owen Barstis University of Michigan
1992 Kristine D. Hensel University of British Columbia
1992 Stephanie Ann Brandt Solina MIT
1993 Jenn Campbell University of Waterloo
1993 Hao Li Cornell University
1993 J. Bradley White University of Waterloo
1994 Jong-Ho Choi California Institute of Technology
1994 Russell John Low Oxford University
1994 Jonathan Paul O'Brien MIT
1995 Weng-Ching Hung National Tsing Hua University
1995 James Phillips University of Minnesota
1995 Pey-Shiun Yeh National Tsing Hua University
1996 Christopher Dennis Oxford University
1996 Damian Goodridge Oxford University
1996 Robert Neuhauser Technical University of Munich
1997 Andrea Callegari Princeton University
1997 Christopher J. Gruenloh Purdue Uiversity
1997 Matthew P. Jacobson MIT
1998 Timothy Barckholtz The Ohio State University
1998 Florian Reiche Universitat Gottingen
1998 Nathalie Picque CNRS
1999 R. Timothy Bonn University of Pennsylvania
1999 Sachiko Itono Ochanomizu University
1999 Sabine F. Deppe Universitat Gottingen
2000 Thomas Gilbert ETH Zurich
2000 Shoujun Xu John Hopkins University
2000 Jennifer Van Wijngaarden University of Alberta
2000 Jochen Kuepper Heinrich-Heine-Universitaet
2001 Yaqian Liu University of Alberta
2001 Sherri Hunt University of Minnesota
2001 Alfredo Bracamonte Yale University
2002 Sandhya Gopalakrishnan The Ohio State University
2002 Patrice Theulé Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
2002 Wilton Virgo Arizona State University

Last Update: December 2002