Prize Recipient

Q. Charles Su
Illinois State University

Citation:

"For their outstanding effort at creating a successful and renowned optical theory research program at Illinois State University, and for their exemplary involvement of undergraduates in this research."

Background:

Q. Charles Su received a BS (84) from Nankai University and a PhD (91) from the University of Rochester. He was a research associate at the Max-Planck Institute for Quantum Optics (Germany) before joining Illinois State University in 1994. He became a professor in 2002. In 1997 he received an Undergraduate Computational Engineering and Science Award from the US DOE. His research has been supported by NSF, DOE, and the Research Corporation. He serves as referee for research journals and funding agencies, and as session chair and advisory committee member at international conferences. His over 90 peer-reviewed research publications were cited about 1400 times. Over a third of the papers were with undergraduates coauthors.

Prof. Su co-founded and co-directs the Intense Laser Physics Theory Unit www.phy.ilstu.edu/ILP with Prof. Grobe. They have involved about 35 undergraduate students in their research programs. Student recognition includes the LeRoy Apker (APS) and Barbara Lotze (AAPT) awards. ILP research students have presented 150 conference talks, seven of which have received DAMOP research awards (APS).

Prof. Su studies various aspects of laser-matter interactions ranging from laser fusion diagnosis to non-invasive imaging for biological systems. His numerical and theoretical investigations of strong field effects using intense lasers included atomic stabilization, relativistic cycloatom formation, and the space-time resolved Klein paradox.

Selection Committee:

Enrique Galvez (Chair), Bruce Callen (12/05), Murtadha Khakoo ('05 winner)(12/05), Hans Pfister (v. chair)(12/06), Duncan McBride (12/06)