Center for Space and Habitability (CSH)

Awards & Prizes

Listed are awards or prizes of national or international importance.

Ambizione Fellowship (2020)

Elspeth Lee has won an Ambizione Fellowship (2020), which will be hosted at the CSH. Dr. Lee comes to the CSH from the University of Oxford.

Ambizione Fellowship (2020)

CSH Postdoc Niels Ligterink has won an SNF Ambizione Fellowship (2020), which will be hosted in the Space Research & Planetary Sciences (WP) Division of the Physics Institute within the University of Bern

International Astronomical Union Ph.D Prize (2018)

CSH Experimental Sciences Postdoc Dr. Niels Ligterink wins the 2018 Division B Ph.D Prize of the International Astronomical Union (IAU).

Eccellenza Professorial Fellowship (2018)

CSH Fellow Dr. Susanne Wampfler has won the 2018 Eccellenza Professorial Fellowship of the Swiss National Science Foundation.

Greinacher Ph.D Prize (2018)

CSH and PlanetS Ph.D student Dr. Shang-Min Tsai has won the 2018 Greinacher Ph.D Prize awarded by the Greinacher Foundation of Bern. Dr. Tsai heads to the University of Oxford for a 4-year European Research Council postdoctoral position with Prof. Dr. Raymond Pierrehumbert.

Ambizione Fellowship (2018)

CSH Fellow Dr. Maria Drozdovskaya has won the Ambizione Fellowship (2018). It is for a duration of 4 years and comes with a Ph.D student position.

NASA Group Achievement Award (2018)

CSH SNF Professor Brice-Olivier Demory is part of the 2018 NASA Group Achievement Award for the discovery of the TRAPPIST-1 system of exoplanets.

SNF Early Postdoc Mobility (2018)

CSH Ph.D student Matej Malik has won one of the 2018 Swiss National Science Foundation Early Postdoc Mobility fellowships to bring to the University of Maryland at College Park, U.S.A., where he will be a postdoc in the group of Prof. Eliza Kempton.

The Gruber Foundation Fellowship (2018)

Our incoming Bernoulli Fellow (Heidelberg-Bern), Dr. Nestor Espinoza (Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile), has won The Gruber Foundation (TGF) Fellowship (2018), which is administered by the International Astronomical Union (IAU), to bring to the CSH. Dr. Espinoza has since accepted a permanent astronomer position at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Maryland, where the Hubble Space Telescope is administered, without taking up the second half of his Bernoulli Fellowship at the CSH.

Chambliss Astronomical Writing Award (2018)

Prof. Dr. Kevin Heng is the 2018 recipient of the Chambliss Astronomical Writing Award of the American Astronomical Society (AAS).

European Research Council Consolidator Grant (2017)

Prof. Dr. Kevin Heng has won an European Research Council (ERC) Consolidator Grant worth nearly 2 million euros. The University of Bern has two awardees, across all disciplines, in 2017.

University of Bern International 2021 Ph.D Fellowship (2017)

Chloe Fisher has won one of the University of Bern International 2021 Ph.D Fellowships.

Ambizione Fellowship (2017)

CSH Fellow Dr. Dan Bower has won the Ambizione Fellowship (2017). It is for a duration of 4 years and comes with a Ph.D student position.

Royal Society and Ernest Rutherford Fellowships (2016)

CSH SNF Professor Brice-Olivier Demory has won both the Royal Society University Research Fellowship (2016) and the Ernest Rutherford Fellowship (2016) of the U.K.

Harold Urey Award (2016)

CSH Steering Committee Member Prof. Dr. Klaus Mezger has won the 2016 Harold Urey Award from the European Association of Geochemistry.

The Gruber Foundation Fellowship (2016)

CSH Fellow Dr. Maria Drozdovskaya (Leiden University) has won The Gruber Foundation (TGF) Fellowship (2016), which is administered by the International Astronomical Union (IAU), with the CSH as the host institution.

Marie Heim-Voegtlin Prize (2016)

Dr. Zoe Lehmann, jointly appointed between the CSH and the Department of English, has won the 2016 Marie Heim-Voegtlin Prize of the Swiss National Science Foundation.

Swiss National Science Foundation Professorship (2016)

Dr. Brice-Olivier Demory (University of Cambridge) has won the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF) Professorship with the CSH as the host institute.

NCU-Delta Young Astronomer Lecturership Award (2015)

Prof. Dr. Kevin Heng was selected for the 2015 NCU-Delta Young Astronomer Lecturership Award, which is awarded, on an international basis, to scholars under the age of 45. It comes with a trophy and an invitation to deliver a series of prize lectures in Taiwan.

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MERAC Funding & Travel Awards (Administered by the Swiss Society for Astronomy and Astrophysics)

2018: PD Dr. Martin Jutzi, Marko Sestovic, Shang-Min Tsai; 2017: Dr. Maria Drozdovskaya; 2016: Dr. Joao Mendonca; 2015: Matej Malik, Dr. Daniel Kitzmann