UC Santa Cruz astronomer Mark Krumholz has been chosen to receive the 2013 Helen B. Warner Prize for Astronomy from the American Astronomical Society (AAS).
Krumholz, an associate professor of astronomy and astrophysics, studies the formation of massive stars, the structure and evolution of molecular clouds in space, and processes that regulate star formation in galaxies. The citation accompanying the prize recognizes Krumholz "for major theoretical contributions in the areas of massive star formation and the interstellar medium, both in the galaxy and in the early universe."
The Warner Prize is awarded annually for a significant contribution to observational or theoretical astronomy by an early-career scientist during the five years preceding the award. Krumholz's research addresses questions such as: Why do stars have the masses they do? What sets the rate of star formation in gas clouds and galaxies? What processes control the formation of the most massive stars, which are the dominant source of luminosity in the universe? He approaches these problems using a mix of numerical and analytic techniques.
Krumholz is also active in a community outreach project teaching science classes to prisoners at local detention facilities. He created the UC Santa Cruz Project for Inmate Education in 2009, in conjunction with UCSC Extension administrators and local correction officers.
Since joining the UCSC faculty in 2008, Krumholz has received a Sloan Research Fellowship from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and a Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award from the National Science Foundation. He earned his Ph.D. and M.S. degrees in physics at UC Berkeley and his B.A. in physics from Princeton University.
