About Us

Learn about our history and location, and the awards our department or its members have won in the last years.

Department Awards

AWARDS 2006:

Professor Ata Sarajedini has been named UFRF Professor.

Graduate Student Scott Fleming was awarded the Florida Space Grant Fellowship.

Graduate Student Michelle Edwards was awarded the P.E.O. Scholar Award, given to excellent women students earning their graduate degrees.

AWARDS 2005:

NA

AWARDS 2004:

CAREER AWARD for Professor Vicki Sarajedini NSF has awarded a $0.5M five year CAREER award to Vicki Sarajedini. Our record with respect to these awards is truly outstanding and unmatched by any other astronomy department in the United States. In the last six years, CAREER awards have been made to:

(1) Elizabeth Lada (1998 - followed by a PECASE, the Presidential award, in 1999);
(2) Richard Elston (2000 - followed by a PECASE in 2001);
(3) Fred Hamann (2000);
(4) Steve Eikenberry (2000 - while he was at Cornell);
(5) Ata Sarajedini (2001);
(6) Jonathan Williams (2002); and now
(7) Vicki Sarajedini (2004). Congratulations Vicki!

AWARDS 2003:

Professor James Bruce Rafert, Dean of the Graduate School at Michigan Technological University, has been honored by CLAS as the 'Outstanding Alumnus of the Year' of the UF astronomy department for 2003. Professor Rafert earned his PhD from the department in 1978 in the field of binary star systems.

AWARDS 2002:

Joanna Levine, Ph.D candidate was awarded the Amelia Earhart Fellowship [May 2002]

Jonathan Williams has been awarded a five year $550,000 CAREER grant from the National Science Foundation. To quote from Jonathan's note: "UF Astronomy is now batting 5 out of 5 - the program director told me that whoever is doing the hiring down there, they're doing a great job!" [April 2002]

Doug Ratay won first prize for the paper he presented to the Physics and Engineering Sciences section of the Graduate Student Forum. [April 2002]

Stanley Dermott has been awarded the degree of Doctor of Science in the field of Solar System Dynamics by the University of London. [April 2002]

Helene Flohic received one of the two awards for Quantitative Excellence in the Dual Center University Scholars Program Writing Competition. Her mentor was Dr. Jonathan Williams. [April 2002]

Dean Sullivan of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences has selected Kevin Hanna as one of the two USPS Employee Excellence Award winners for 2002. [April 18, 2002]