The Laboratory Astrophysics Division (LAD) of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) announced Kyle Walker, Ph.D. as the recipient of its inaugural Dissertation Prize, which is given to an individual who has recently completed an outstanding theoretical or experimental doctoral dissertation in laboratory astrophysics. Their first Dissertation Prize was given to Kyle Walker for his thesis "Molecular Collisional Excitation in Astrophysical Environments and Modeling the Early Universe."

Walker earned his PhD in physics at the University of Georgia and is now a postdoctoral research associate at Université du Havre, France. He works at the interface of computational astrophysics and computational atomic and molecular physics, focusing on the molecular properties of interstellar environments. His doctoral research generated critical laboratory astrophysical data needed for modeling astrophysical environments that are not in local thermodynamic equilibrium.

The LAD Dissertation Prize includes a cash award, a framed certificate, and an invited lecture by the recipient at a meeting of the Laboratory Astrophysics Division.

Source: https://lad.aas.org/prizes/2017_dissertation_prize