Prize and Award Speakers at the April Meeting 2017

By Rachel Gaal

Together with exhibits, plenary talks, and poster sessions at the April Meeting 2017 (January 28 - 31), over 200 invited speakers will be sharing their latest research and career insights. Among the distinguished guests are many of the spring 2017 APS prize and award winners.

"Each year, the American Physical Society recognizes leading physicists through a variety of prizes and awards," said APS President Homer Neal in a press release announcing the awards. "We are proud to honor a spectrum of recipients, including outstanding early-career researchers, exceptional communicators and educators, and accomplished theorists and experimentalists working in every major field of physics."

The Julius Edgar Lilienfeld Prize honors a single individual who has made an outstanding contribution to physics and who has exceptional skills in lecturing to diverse audiences. Martin J. Rees of the University of Cambridge was the 2017 honoree "for his contributions into the understanding of the universe and its high-energy contents." He is also being recognized for his skill as a science communicator. Rees will be speaking on Sunday, January 29, during the session: "Prize Talks: Black Holes and Cosmic Explosions."

Another award-winner, Carl M. Bender of Washington University, received the 2017 Dannie Heineman Prize for Mathematical Physics. His publications in this field advanced the theory of Parity-Time (PT) Symmetry in quantum systems, and his work was cited for "inspiring generations of mathematical physicists." Bender will speak during the "Dannie Heineman Prize and Henry Primakoff Award Session" on Saturday, January 28.

The four coauthors of "The Higgs Hunter’s Guide" were the recipients of the 2017 J. J. Sakurai Prize for Theoretical Particle Physics. Sally Dawson of Brookhaven National Laboratory, John F. Gunion of the University of California, Davis, Howard E. Haber of the University of California, Santa Cruz, and Gordon L. Kane of the University of Michigan, were honored for their "instrumental contributions to the theory of the Higgs boson." Each recipient will give a lecture in the same session on Monday, January 30, on the topics of "The Future of Higgs Physics", "Extended Higgs Sectors", "Beyond the Standard Model", and the implications of an "M-Theory World."

Below is a list of invited spring 2017 prize and award winners who will be presenting their work at the April Meeting. Visit the meeting website for information on their scheduled sessions.

Hans A. Bethe Prize — Stuart L. Shapiro, "Cosmic Collisions Online — Compact Binary Mergers, Gravitational Waves and Gamma-Ray Bursts"
Tom W. Bonner Prize in Nuclear Physics — Charles F. Perdrisat, "The Elastic Form Factors of the Nucleon"
Edward A. Bouchet Award — Enrico J. Ramirez-Ruiz, "Heavy Element Synthesis in the Universe"
Joseph Burton Forum Award — Rush Holt, "Science Policy in the 21st Century"
Excellence in Physics Education Award — Howard Matis, "Contemporary Physics Education Project (CPEP) — an organization dedicated to presenting the latest physics discoveries in an understandable and colorful style"
Einstein Prize — Robert M. Wald, "Black Holes, Thermodynamics, and Quantum Theory"
Herman Feshbach Prize in Theoretical Nuclear Physics — Joseph Carlson, "Development of Quantum Monte Carlo Techniques"
W.K.H. Panofsky Prize in Experimental Particle Physics — Peter Jenni, "The Long Journey to the Higgs Boson: ATLAS", and Tejinder Virdee, "The Long Journey to the Higgs boson: CMS"
Francis M. Pipkin Award — Jens Dilling, "Nuclear Physics Mysteries Revealed by Precision Ion Trap Measurements"
Henry Primakoff Award for Early-Career Particle Physics — Tracy R. Slatyer, "Constraint on the Properties of Dark Matter Using Astrophysical and Cosmological Datasets"
Leo Szilard Lectureship Award — James Timbie, "Technical Dimensions of Arms Control and Non-Proliferation Agreements"
John Wheatley Award — Neil G. Turok, "How Physics Can Help Africa Transform, from a Problem to an Opportunity"
Robert R. Wilson Prize for Achievement in the Physics of Particle Accelerators — James Bjorken, "A Quantum Field Theory Approach to Intrabeam Scattering", Sekazi Mtingwa, "High Energy Approximations to IBS & Current Applications", and Anton Piwinski, "Intrabeam Scattering and Touschek Effect"

April Meeting 2017 Website