Dr Baojiu Li of the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics of the University of Cambridge has won the 2009 RAS Michael Penston Prize in recognition of his outstanding PhD thesis.

Baojiu worked on the physical and cosmological implications of modified gravity theories, a key area of interest in astronomy and cosmology.

The runner up for this year's award was Dr Emily Curtis of the Astrophysics Group in the University of Cambridge for her thesis 'A submillimetre survey of clustered low-mass star formation'.

List of thesis prize winners