The Byron Prize for Best PhD Dissertation

In 1994, the MCB Program established the Byron Prize in honor of Dr. Fred Byron, Vice Chancellor for Research at UMass Amherst. Dr. Byron was instrumental in establishing the MCB program and showed great vision and support of both research and graduate education throughout his career at UMass.

Each summer, students who received PhD degrees in the previous year can be nominated for the prize by their dissertation advisors. The winner presents a talk at the MCB Retreat and receives a cash prize of $1,000. Prize selection is made by the MCB Steering Committee, which has established the following criteria:

• Originality and creativity of the research
• Impact: significance in the field
• Scope of the research project
• Scope of techniques used to solve the problem
• Quality of writing
• Contributions to the MCB program