The Winton Capital Management Prize for Outstanding Project Work in Astrophysics

Winton Capital Management Limited has endowed a prize for the best final-year project work in astrophysics in the University of Bristol. This prize, to the value of £500, is awarded to the student, or students, who have obtained outstanding results from their projects and written them up into excellent final-year reports. Both BSc and MSci projects are considered for the prize. Although the extra time spent on the project means that the prize will often be awarded for MSci work, in exceptional circumstances the prize may be awarded to a BSc student, or split between two projects deemed of equal quality. The project reports are assessed in the first instance by the Project Coordinator and the Head of the Teaching Committee, and a shortlist is then considered by the Head of Department.

In 2010, two BSc projects were judged to be worthy of consideration for the prize - no MSci project achieved as much. After consideration by the Head of Department, it has been decided to split the prize equally between Charlotte Armitage, for work entitled The Chandra Jet Survey and James Arram, for X-ray spectroscopy of the low luminosity active galactic nucleus M81*; probing low luminosity accretion flows. Both pieces of work are at a standard that should lead to publication in the professional literature, and it is remarkable that both could be completed within the scope of the shorter BSc project.

Winton Capital Management Limited, and the Department of Physics, congratulate the winners, and look forward to presenting the awards at the Departmental awards ceremony on Friday 9 July 2010.

Updated: 7-June-2010