2024 Rubin Prize Winner - Sarah Millholland

The American Astronomical Society’s Division on Dynamical Astronomy (DDA) is pleased to announce that the 2024 recipient of the Vera Rubin Early Career Award is Dr. Sarah Millholland of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for her outstanding, wide-ranging contributions to the dynamics of multi-planet extrasolar systems.

Dr. Millholland earned her Ph.D. from Yale University and continued research as a NASA Sagan postdoctoral fellow at Princeton University before joining the faculty as an assistant professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  Her work is distinguished by thoughtful analyses of 3D dynamical processes in planetary systems and by effective use of observational data to constrain dynamical models.  

Drawing a few examples from her substantial collection of important contributions, Dr. Millholland has demonstrated that super-Earth planets within a planetary system typically have similar masses, that the statistics of compact multi-planet systems are consistent with a smooth inclination distribution, and that resonances trapping obliquities to high values may enhance the tidal evolution of planetary orbits.

Dr. Millholland will be invited to give a lecture at the 56th annual DDA meeting in the spring of 2025.