Council Approves Five New APS Awards

At its November meeting, APS Council approved five new awards of varying types. All of them will be calling for nominations in early 2011, in the expectation of presenting the first round of awards later in the year or in early 2012.

Among the new awards is the Stanley Corssin Award in Fluid Dynamics, named for a distinguished professor at Johns Hopkins who was closely associated with the establishment of the Division of Fluid Dynamics and himself won the Fluid Dynamics Prize in 1983. The Corrsin Award will have a stipend of $5000, and  is intended as a mid-career award to complement the Fluid Dynamics Prize, which usually goes to a senior physicist.

Another new award is the Landau-Spitzer Award in Plasma Physics, which will be unique in the APS portfolio in that it will be administered jointly with the European Physical Society. The award will be given for outstanding contributions to plasma physics, together with advancement of the collaboration and unity between the European Union and the US. It will be presented in alternate years, and at least every second time (i.e. every 4 years)  will be given to an early-career researcher. It carries a stipend of $4000.

Council also approved the Henry Primakoff Award for Early-Career Particle Physics, proposed by the Division of Particles and Fields. It will recognize outstanding research in elementary-particle physics performed by a physicist who has held the PhD for no more than 7 years, plus any career breaks. Supported by a fund that was established by members of the University of Pennsylvania physics department in memory of Henry Primakoff, who was a professor there for many years until his death in 1983, the award will have a stipend of $1500.

Also proposed by DPF and approved by Council is a new dissertation award in theoretical particle physics, which will complement the Tanaka Award, given annually for the best dissertation in experimental particle physics.

Finally, Council approved an award to be administered by the Committee on Education, that will recognize programmatic excellence in undergraduate physics education. Each such department or program will be recognized for a three-year term, and approximately three departments or programs per year will be selected. The award will consist of a plaque, and will be noted on the APS website. It will provide additional recognition for education beyond the existing Award for Excellence in Physics Education.