Prizes

Robert Street Doctoral Prize in Physics

In honour of Professor Robert Street, Foundation Professor of Physics at Monash University, an annual prize is awarded to the best PhD thesis in the School of Physics and Astronomy at Monash University. This annual prize is known as the Robert Street Doctoral Award. The first award was presented in December 2012.

The next award ceremony will be held on 20 October 2026 from 2 - 4pm in room 107, 10 College Walk. We look forward to welcoming our 2025 award recipient, Dr Neil Dowling, and Professor Alison Street AO who will present the award.

Winners

• Dr Mitko Oldfield (2024)  Electronic, Excitonic and Polaritonic Properties of Hybrid Metal-Halide Perovskites
• Dr Qile Li (2023)  Understanding the electronic structure of intrinsic magnetic topological insulator
• Dr Isobel Romero-Shaw (2022)  Eccentricity in Gravitational-Wave Transients
• Dr  Nikhil Sarin (2021)  The observational signatures of nascent neutron stars
• Dr Colm Talbot (joint 2020) Astrophysics of Binary Black Holes at the Dawn of Gravitational-Wave Astronomy
• Dr Rahil Valani  (joint 2020) Superwalking Droplets and Generalised Pilot-Wave Dynamics
• Dr Hayley Macpherson (2019) Inhomogeneous cosmology in an anisotropic Universe
• Dr Andrew Groszek (2018) Vortex Dynamics in Two-Dimensional Bose-Einstein Condensates
• Dr Graham White (2017) Aspects of particle cosmology with an emphasis on baryogenesis
• Dr Freda Werdiger (2016) Argand-plane mappings induced by complex scalar wavefields
• Dr Samuel Eastwood (2015) Singularimetry: phase measurement using vortices and caustics
• Dr Ben Farmer (2014) Epistemic probability and naturalness in global fits of supersymmetric models
• Dr Changxi Zheng (2013) Development and application of a III-V surface electron microscope
• Dr Kaye Morgan (2012) Studies in phase contrast x-ray imaging of biological interfaces

Shaun Johnstone Prize

The Shaun Johnstone Prize is awarded annually for the best paper written by a PhD student in experimental physics or astronomy published in the past year. The prize is in honour of Shaun Johnstone who passed away from cancer soon after receiving his PhD in experimental physics at Monash University in 2019.