The Adams Prize is a prize[1] awarded each year by the Faculty of Mathematics at St John's College to a UK-based mathematician for distinguished research in mathematical sciences.
The prize is named after the mathematician John Couch Adams and was endowed by members of St John's College and approved by the senate of the university in 1848, to commemorate Adams' role in the discovery of the planet Neptune. Originally open only to Cambridge graduates, the current stipulation is that the mathematician must reside in the UK and be under forty years of age.[2]
The Adams Prize is awarded in three parts: the first is paid directly to the candidate; another third is paid to the candidate's institution to fund research expenses; and the final third is paid on publication of a survey paper in the winner's field in a major mathematics journal.
The prize has been awarded to many well-known mathematicians, including James Clerk Maxwell and Sir William Hodge. The first female recipient, in 2002, was Susan Howson, then a lecturer at the University of Nottingham, for her work on number theory and elliptic curves.