Jennifer Bergner delivers Bok Prize Lecture

Jennifer Bergner, Assistant Professor in Chemistry at UC Berkeley, delivered the Bok Prize Lecture on "The icy origins of planetary systems," on January 27, 2026.  Kenzie Bok, the great-granddaughter of Bart J. Bok, represented the Bok family and presented the prize.

The Bok Prize Lecture is the gift of an anonymous donor to establish "a Prize Fund in honor of Professor Bart J. Bok, and in his name, the income to be used for a prize to be awarded, preferably biennially, on the recommendation of the Astronomy Department, to a recent holder of a Ph.D. degree in the Physical Sciences from Harvard or Radcliffe, the award to be preferably based upon a doctoral thesis, book, or research paper, in the area of Milky Way research by observational methods." The Bok Prize lecture is usually presented in the spring of the year following the award year.