Johns Hopkins Astrophysicist Wins Comstock Prize in Physics

Office of News and Information - Johns Hopkins University - 901 South Bond Street, Suite 540 - Baltimore, Maryland 21231 - Phone: 443-287-9960 | Fax: 443-287-9920 Charles L. Bennett , a professor in the Henry A. Rowland Department of Physics and Astronomy at The Johns Hopkins University, has been chosen by the National Academy of Sciences as the winner of the 2009 Comstock Prize in Physics for his groundbreaking work in cosmology. As the leader of the NASA Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) space mission, Bennett and his team made a precise determination of the age, composition and curvature of the universe. The $20,000 Comstock Prize was established in 1913 through a donation from the estate of Cyrus B. Comstock, who was chief engineer under General Ulysses S. Grant at the battle of Vicksburg and a member of the Army Corps of Engineers. It is awarded every five years to a resident of North America for a "recent innovative discovery or investigation in electricity, magnetism or radiant energy, broadly interpreted." The first Comstock prize went to Robert A. Millikan of the University of Chicago for his discovery of the charge of the electron. The 2009 prize to Bennett is the 20th Comstock Prize.