School researcher wins Young Scientist Award of Polish Astronomical Society

Congratulations to Michal Michalowski, a researcher at the Institute for Astronomy, who was chosen in recognition of outstanding, individual accomplishments in the field of astronomy.

The full citation reads: "Dr Michalowski has made a significant contribution to our understanding of formation and evolution of dust in the Universe, and he is an independent and extraordinarily productive researcher. In particular, Dr Michalowski has found evidences that in the distant universe most of dust formed through grain growth in the interstellar medium, and was not directly produced by supernovae or asymptotic giant branch stars. Dr Michalowski has also proven that a large fraction of star formation activity in the Universe happened in the most luminous galaxies, which is a significant constraint on cosmological galaxy evolution models, and that these luminous galaxies have similar characteristics to their fainter counterparts. Moreover, Dr Michalowski found that most of stars in these luminous galaxies were formed before the current strong star-formation episode." 

"I am honoured to receive this award. It was established in 1970 and since then has been awarded to many distinguished Polish astronomers. I am especially happy because now, together with the RAS award, the astronomical communities of the country where I am from and the country where I work have both recognised the importance of my research." Michal Michalowski, Institute for Astronomy