The HEAD Mid-Career Prize

About this program

The AAS High Energy Astrophysics Division (HEAD) awards the Mid-Career Prize roughly every 18 months to an individual astrophysicist for a significant observational or theoretical advance in high-energy astrophysics; the winner receives $1,500, a framed certificate, waived meeting registration, up to $1,500 toward travel, and an invited talk at the Divisional Meeting. Eligible nominees must be within 15 years of their PhD (with allowances for parental leave or other valid gaps) and the cited body of work must be published in a refereed journal within the past five years and originally published within 15 years of the nominee’s PhD. Nominations (self-nominations allowed) should be emailed to headsec@aas.org and must include a cover letter, a nomination statement listing the specific paper(s) with bibliographic details and the nominee’s specific contributions for multi-author works, and the date of the nominee’s PhD. Nominations are not held over between cycles and the current deadline is September 30, 2026.