Rao Prize
This coming June three more Rao Prizes will be awarded. In order to be eligible for the Rao Prize, a student must have their advisor certify by email to the Chair (see below), that the student:
- (i) is primary author of the work being presented
- (ii) is the actual presenter of the talk
- (iii) has never competed for the Rao Prize prior to this year
- (iv) has not completed a Ph.D. thesis prior to March 1 of the current calendar year.
They must also send a letter from the research supervisor certifying that the student meets all four of the above requirements. This letter of certification may be a simple email message addressed to Josh Vura-Weis (chair@isms.illinois.edu). The letter should identify the talk abstract by its P-number. The letter of certification is not a nomination letter and will not be considered by the prize judges.
Rao Prize winners and their co-authors are invited to submit articles to the Journal of Molecular Spectroscopy which are based on the research described in their talks. After passing the normal review process, each article will appear in the Journal with a caption identifying the paper with the talk that won the Rao Prize.
The award is administered by a Prize Committee chaired by Jennifer van Wijngaarden, University of Manitoba and comprised of Brooks Pate, University of Virginia; Maria Sanz, King's College London; Jacob Stewart, Connecticut College; and Tim Zwier, Purdue University. Any questions or suggestions about the Prize should be addressed to the Committee. Anyone (especially post-docs) willing to serve on a panel of judges should contact Jennifer van Wijngaarden (e-mail: vanwijng@cc.umanitoba.ca).
Past RAO Prize Winners
| Year | Winners | University |
| 2023 | Gayatri Batra | Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY) |
| 2023 | Ju Hyeon Lee | Fritz-Haber-Institut der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft |
| 2023 | Kim Steenbakkers | Radboud University |
| 2022 | Madison Foreman | JILA |
| 2022 | Thomas Salomon | University of Cologne |
| 2022 | Yue-Rou Zhang | Brown University |
| 2021 | Parker Crandall | Technische Universität Berlin |
| 2021 | Nicholas Hölsch | ETH Zuerich |
| 2021 | Wey-Wey Su | Stanford University |
| 2021 | James Thorpe | University of Florida |
| 2019 | Mark Babin | The University of California, Berkeley |
| 2019 | Lidor Foguel | Yale University |
| 2019 | Sommer L. Johansen | The University of California, Davis |
| 2018 | Zaijun Chen | Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics |
| 2018 | Elijah Jans | The Ohio State University |
| 2018 | Elizabeth Ryland | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign |
| 2017 | Bryce Bjork | University of Colorado at Boulder |
| 2017 | Anna Huff | University of Minnesota |
| 2017 | Christopher Shingledecker | University of Virginia |
| 2016 | David Grimes | MIT |
| 2016 | Kasper Mackeprang | University of Copenhagen |
| 2016 | Josey E. Topolski | Indiana University Bloomington |
| 2015 | Daniel Bakker | Radboud University |
| 2015 | Scott Dubowsky | The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign |
| 2015 | James McMillan | The Ohio State University |
| 2014 | Grant Buckingham | University of Colorado |
| 2014 | Kathryn Chew | Yale University |
| 2014 | Yu-Hsuan Huang | National Chiao Tung University |
| 2013 | Brett McGuire | California Institute of Technology |
| 2013 | Gerard Dean O'Connor | University of Sydney |
| 2013 | Stefan Truppe | Imperial College London |
| 2012 | Nils Bartels | Georg August Universitaet Goettingen |
| 2012 | Andrew Petit | The Ohio State University |
| 2012 | Arron Wolk | Yale University |
| 2011 | Adam J. Fleisher | University of Pittsburgh |
| 2011 | Justin L. Neill | University of Virginia |
| 2011 | Thomas J. Preston | University of Wisconsin |
| 2010 | Hui-Ling Han | National Chiao Tung University |
| 2010 | Samantha Horvath | The Ohio State University |
| 2010 | Solveig Gaarn Olesen | University of Copenhagen |
| 2009 | Amanda Case | University of Wisconsin |
| 2009 | Andreas Hauser | Graz University of Technology |
| 2009 | George Barratt Park | MIT |
| 2008 | Frank Filsinger | Max-Planck-Gesellschaft |
| 2008 | Jen Nicole Landry | University of Alberta |
| 2008 | Fumie Xe Sunahori | University of Kentucky |
| 2007 | George L. Barnes | University of Wisconsin-Madison |
| 2007 | Michael A. Flory | University of Arizona |
| 2007 | Erin N. Sharp | The Ohio State University |
| 2006 | Jack Barbera | JILA/University of Colorado |
| 2006 | Gary Douberly | University of North Carolina |
| 2006 | Qing Wen | University of Alberta |
| 2005 | Django Andrews | University of Colorado |
| 2005 | José Lopez | The Ohio State University |
| 2005 | Jaime A. Stearns | Purdue University |
| 2004 | Jennifer L. Gottfried | University of Chicago |
| 2004 | T.J. Ronningen | The Ohio State University |
| 2004 | Melanie Schnell | Universitat Hannover |
| 2003 | Romey Heuff | University of Victoria |
| 2003 | William McNavage | University of Pennsylvania |
| 2003 | Sergey Zalyubovsky | The Ohio State University |
| 2002 | Sandhya Gopalakrishnan | The Ohio State University |
| 2002 | Patrice Theulé | Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne |
| 2002 | Wilton Virgo | Arizona State University |
| 2001 | Yaqian Liu | University of Alberta |
| 2001 | Sherri Hunt | University of Minnesota |
| 2001 | Alfredo Bracamonte | Yale University |
| 2000 | Thomas Gilbert | ETH Zurich |
| 2000 | Shoujun Xu | John Hopkins University |
| 2000 | Jennifer Van Wijngaarden | University of Alberta |
| 2000 | Jochen Kuepper | Heinrich-Heine-Universitaet |
| 1999 | R. Timothy Bonn | University of Pennsylvania |
| 1999 | Sachiko Itono | Ochanomizu University |
| 1999 | Sabine F. Deppe | Universitat Gottingen |
| 1998 | Timothy Barckholtz | The Ohio State University |
| 1998 | Florian Reiche | Universitat Gottingen |
| 1998 | Nathalie Picque | CNRS |
| 1997 | Andrea Callegari | Princeton University |
| 1997 | Christopher J. Gruenloh | Purdue Uiversity |
| 1997 | Matthew P. Jacobson | MIT |
| 1996 | Christopher Dennis | Oxford University |
| 1996 | Damian Goodridge | Oxford University |
| 1996 | Robert Neuhauser | Technical University of Munich |
| 1995 | Weng-Ching Hung | National Tsing Hua University |
| 1995 | James Phillips | University of Minnesota |
| 1995 | Pey-Shiun Yeh | National Tsing Hua University |
| 1994 | Jong-Ho Choi | California Institute of Technology |
| 1994 | Russell John Low | Oxford University |
| 1994 | Jonathan Paul O'Brien | MIT |
| 1993 | Jenn Campbell | University of Waterloo |
| 1993 | Hao Li | Cornell University |
| 1993 | J. Bradley White | University of Waterloo |
| 1992 | Toni Owen Barstis | University of Michigan |
| 1992 | Kristine D. Hensel | University of British Columbia |
| 1992 | Stephanie Ann Brandt Solina | MIT |
| 1991 | David Ferguson | The Ohio State University |
| 1991 | Elizabeth Piocos | University of Cincinnati |
| 1991 | Eric S.J. Robles | The Ohio State University |