Dr Przemysław Mróz from the University of Warsaw (UW) was among the ten winners of the International Astronomical Union (IAU) Award for the most outstanding doctoral dissertations in astronomy defended in 2019.

Dr Przemysław Mróz is the first Polish scientist to receive the IAU PhD Prize. He was awarded for his doctoral dissertation entitled “Astrophysical applications of gravitational microlensing in the Milky Way”, written under the guidance of Prof. Andrzej Udalski at the University of Warsaw Astronomical Observatory.

He describes the results of research on two pioneering scientific projects: measurements of the incidence and properties of free planets orbiting in our galaxy, and research on the distribution of stars and dark objects in the Milky Way by determining optical depth and the frequency of so-called gravitational microlensing phenomena.