Prize Recipient

Zhite Yu
Jefferson Lab

"For discovering new jet polarization substructures resulting from quantum interference at high-energy colliders, advancing the QCD factorization for exclusive processes, and offering innovative solutions to the enduring x-dependence problem of generalized parton distributions."

Zhite Yu received his BS in physics at Peking University in 2017, and then moved to Michigan State University to obtain his PhD in theoretical high-energy physics in 2023, under the guidance of Prof. C.-P. Yuan. In the Spring of 2020, he visited Jefferson Lab and started working with Prof. Jian-Wei Qiu on QCD factorization and generalized parton distribution. His doctoral research covered both this part and novel polarization-related jet substructure observables he proposed for the Large Hadron Collider. Zhite received the APS FIP Distinguished Student Program Award in 2023. He is now a postdoctoral fellow at the Theory Center in Jefferson Lab, continuing his research on QCD factorization theorem and its phenomenological application. This includes probing the three-dimensional structure of the proton and devising novel observables for exploring new physics at high-energy colliders, with both polarized and unpolarized beams.