On 21st May Professor Andrzej Udalski from the Astronomical Observatory of the UW has received the Dan David Prize. This award belongs to the top ten prestigious distinctions in the world.

The Dan David Prize is a joint international award given by the Dan David Foundation and the Tel Aviv University. Its main aim is to promote the scientific, technological and humanistic achievements that advance and improve the world.

The award covers three time dimensions – Past, Present and Future. Professor Andrzej Udalski from the University of Warsaw received the Dan David Prize 2017 in the category Future – astronomy dedicated to an outstanding individual or organization whose ongoing research is making a groundbreaking contribution to the field of observational or theoretical astronomy.

The UW scholar received that prestigious award due to his research on the long-term large-scale sky survey. Not only Prof. Udalski, but also Prof. Neil Gehrels from the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and Prof. Shrinivas Kulkarni from the California Institute of Technology were awarded in the same category.

Prof. Andrzej Udalski leads the biggest astronomical project in the history of Polish astronomy: “OGLE – The Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment”. In 2009 Professor Udalski, for his research within the fourth phase of the project (OGLE-IV), received an Advanced Grant of the European Research Council. On his project entitled “Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment: New Frontiers in Observational Astronomy” a scientist got 2.5 million euro.

Professor Udalski is an author and co-author of 450 papers published by the most significant scientific journals that were cited over 18 thousand times.

The ceremony of receiving the Dan David Prize was held on 21st May at the Tel Aviv University.

Watch the video presenting the ERC grant of Prof. Andrzej Udalski