APS Announces Recipients of the Spring 2024 Prizes and Awards

Each year, APS recognizes outstanding achievement in research, education, and public service. This year’s spring award recipients, listed below, were selected from hundreds of nominees from across the physics community. APS congratulates them and applauds their dedication to science. The recipients will be recognized at several APS meetings in 2024, including the March Meeting and the April Meeting.

Visit the APS Honors, Prizes & Awards webpage for a full list of all honors.

Virginia Louise Trimble received the Abraham Pais Prize for History of Physics, which recognizes outstanding scholarly achievements in the history of physics.

She earned the prize “for extensive contributions to the history of astrophysics, particularly for reference works, articles, and biographical essays, especially works that include female astronomers, and for supporting the history of physics community.”

Trimble is a professor of physics and astronomy at the University of California, Irvine.

Eugene M. Chudnovsky received the Andrei Sakharov Prize, which recognizes outstanding leadership and achievements of scientists in upholding human rights.

He earned the prize “for decades of leadership of prominent campaigns on behalf of oppressed scientists, including chairmanship of the APS and New York Academy of Sciences human rights committees and co-chairing of the Committee of Concerned Scientists.”

Chudnovsky is a Distinguished Professor of Physics at Lehman College in New York and a member of the doctoral faculty at the CUNY Graduate School.

Gustavo E. Scuseria received the Aneesur Rahman Prize for Computational Physics, which recognizes outstanding achievement in computational physics research.

He earned the prize “for the groundbreaking development and application of screened hybrid density functional and ab initio methods to the accurate modeling of molecules and solids.”

Scuseria is the Robert A. Welch Professor of Chemistry, Professor of Physics and Astronomy, and Professor of Materials Science and Nanoengineering at Rice University in Texas.

Howard M. Milchberg received the Arthur L. Schawlow Prize in Laser Science, which recognizes outstanding contributions to basic research using lasers to advance our knowledge of the fundamental physical properties of materials and their interaction with light.

He earned the prize “for pioneering contributions in the fields of plasma optics, guiding ultra-intense laser beams, and developing compact, high-gradient laser-driven accelerators.”

Milchberg is a professor of physics and electrical and computer engineering at the University of Maryland.

Nitin Samarth received the David Adler Lectureship Award in the Field of Materials Physics, which recognizes an outstanding contributor to the field of materials physics who is notable for high quality research, review articles, and lecturing.

He earned the award “for seminal contributions to semiconductor spintronics through the development of atomically engineered materials.”

Samarth is the Verne M. Willaman Professor of Physics and Professor of Materials Science & Engineering at the Pennsylvania State University.

Anne L'Huillier received the Davisson-Germer Prize in Atomic or Surface Physics, which recognizes outstanding work in atomic physics or surface physics. She earned the prize “for pioneering experimental and theoretical work leading to the discovery of high harmonic generation in gases and the micro- and macroscopic physics responsible for it, and for controlling the phenomenon to create and analyze attosecond pulse trains to probe ultrafast electron dynamics in matter.”

L'Huillier is a professor of atomic physics at Lund University in Sweden.

Tatiana Erukhimova received the Dwight Nicholson Medal for Outreach, which recognizes the humanitarian aspect of physics and physicists created through public lectures and public media, teaching, research, or science related activities.

She earned the medal “for leadership in bringing the excitement of physics through innovative education programs, summer boarding schools for public high school teachers, the TAMU Physics and Engineering Festival, the Real Physics Live program, and online physics videos with more than 400 million views.”

Erukhimova is an instructional professor and inaugural holder of the Marsha L. ‘69 and Ralph F. Schilling ‘68 Endowed Chair in the Department of Physics & Astronomy at Texas A&M University.

Anders Nilsson received the Earle K. Plyler Prize for Molecular Spectroscopy & Dynamics, which recognizes notable contributions to the field of molecular spectroscopy and dynamics.

He earned the prize “for seminal contributions in the application of x-ray spectroscopy methods to the molecular dynamics of water and catalytic reactions.”

Nilsson is a professor of chemical physics at Stockholm University and photon science at Stanford University in California.

Corentin Coulais received the Early Career Award for Soft Matter Research, which recognizes outstanding and sustained contributions by an early-career researcher to the soft matter field.

He earned the award “for pioneering research into soft matter-based metamaterials with on-demand mechanical properties.”

Coulais is a faculty member in the Institute of Physics at the University of Amsterdam.

Alvine Christelle Kamaha received the Edward A. Bouchet Award, which recognizes a distinguished minority physicist who has made significant contributions to physics research and the advancement of underrepresented minority scientists.

She earned the award “for leadership and key accomplishments in the experimental search for dark matter in the Universe, including advances in radioactive purity, as well as contributions to outreach, diversity, and inclusion through service and mentoring of students.”

Kamaha is an assistant professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.

The Excellence in Physics Education Award, which recognizes a team, collaboration, or an exceptional individual who has exhibited a sustained commitment to excellence in physics education, went to a team including Lorraine Blackwell, Greg Dick, Dave Fish, Kelly Foyle, Lauren E. Hayward, Emma Nichols, Damian Pope, Marie Strickland, and Tonia Williams of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics.

The team earned the award “for developing outstanding educational resources that are distributed free to physics teachers in 130 countries, for fostering an international peer-to-peer teacher training network, and for delivering inclusive and inspiring educational programs to students around the world.”

Azadeh Keivani received the FIAP Career Lectureship Award, which recognizes physicists in industrial and other non-academic careers for their significant contributions to the advancement of physics of a technical, industrial, or entrepreneurial nature and for their demonstrated ability to give interesting and engaging lectures to both experts and non-experts.

She earned the award “for the development and application of artificial intelligence techniques to problems ranging from education to clinical studies in cancer and heart disease, and for enthusiasm in the translation of esoteric academic research training into solutions for pressing real-world problems.”

Azadeh Keivani is a senior data scientist at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital.

Feng Wang received the Frank Isakson Prize for Optical Effects in Solids, which recognizes outstanding optical research that lead to breakthroughs in the condensed matter sciences.

He earned the prize for pioneering and trail-blazing works on the exploration of new physics and exotic phenomena in 1D and 2D quantum materials that have guided advances in the field.

Wang is a professor at the University of California, Berkeley.

Chih-Yuan (C.Y.) Lu received the George E. Pake Prize, which recognizes outstanding work by physicists combining original research accomplishments with leadership in the management of research or development in industry.

He earned the prize “for seminal scientific innovations and outstanding contributions in device physics and semiconductor technology, and for visionary leadership of semiconductor non-volatile memory (NVM) manufacturing technology and the integrated circuit industry.”

Lu is the president of Macronix International Co., Ltd. in Taiwan.

Geoff Penington received the George E. Valley Prize, which recognizes an early-career individual for an outstanding scientific contribution to physics that is deemed to have significant potential for a dramatic impact on the field.

He earned the award for “for computation of the quantum entropy of an evaporating black hole and its radiation.”

Penington is the Silverman Chair and Assistant Professor of Physics at the University of California, Berkeley.

John Richard Bond received the Hans A. Bethe Prize, which recognizes outstanding work in theory, experiment or observation in the areas of astrophysics, nuclear physics, nuclear astrophysics, or closely related fields.

He earned the prize “for developing conceptual and quantitative tools that have enabled cosmologists to measure the geometry, content, and age of the universe.”

Bond is a professor at the Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics and the University of Toronto and the director of the Cosmology and Gravity Program at the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research in Canada.

Javier Mauricio Duarte received the Henry Primakoff Award for Early-Career Particle Physics, which recognizes outstanding contributions made by early-career physicists and helps promote the careers of exceptionally promising physicists.

He earned the award “for accelerating trigger technologies in experimental particle physics with novel real-time approaches by embedding artificial intelligence and machine learning in programmable gate arrays, and for critical advances in Higgs physics studies at the Large Hadron Collider in all-hadronic final states.”

Duarte is an assistant professor of physics at the University of California, San Diego.

Gail C. McLaughlin received the Herman Feshbach Prize in Theoretical Nuclear Physics, which recognizes outstanding research in theoretical nuclear physics.

She earned the prize “for seminal contributions to the study of neutrinos in explosive systems and for elucidating the profound impact of this microphysics on the synthesis of elements.”

McLaughlin is a University Distinguished Professor in physics at North Carolina State University.

Chiara Cammarota, Andrea Marcello Mambuca, and Izaak Neri received the Irwin Oppenheim Award, which recognizes outstanding contributions to physics by early-career scientists who publish in Physical Review E (PRE).

The team earned the award “for the study of dynamical systems on large networks with predator-prey interactions that are stable and exhibit oscillations.”

Cammarota is an associate professor at Sapienza University of Rome. Mambuca is a quantitative analyst at Citi. Neri is a Senior Lecturer at King’s College London.

Andrzej J. Buras received the J. J. Sakurai Prize for Theoretical Particle Physics, which recognizes outstanding achievement in particle theory.

He earned the prize “for exceptional contributions to quark-flavor physics, in particular, developing and carrying out calculations of higher-order QCD effects to electroweak transitions, as well as for drawing phenomenological connections between kaons, D mesons, and B mesons.”

Buras is a professor emeritus at the Technical University of Munich in Germany.

Harold Y. Hwang received the James C. McGroddy Prize for New Materials, which recognizes outstanding achievement in the science and application of new materials.

He earned the prize “for pioneering work in oxide interfaces, dilute superconductivity in heterostructures, freestanding oxide membranes, and superconducting nickelates using pulsed laser deposition, as well as for significant early contributions to the physics of bulk transition metal oxides.”

Hwang is a professor of applied physics at Stanford University, a professor of photon science at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, and the director of the Stanford Institute for Materials and Energy Sciences in California.

Charles E. Sing received the John H. Dillon Medal, which recognizes outstanding research accomplishments by early-career polymer physicists who have demonstrated exceptional research promise.

He earned the medal “for pioneering advances in polyelectrolyte phase behavior and polymer dynamics using theory and computational modeling.”

Sing is an associate professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

R. Seth Smith received the Jonathan F. Reichert and Barbara Wolff-Reichert Award for Excellence in Advanced Laboratory Instruction, which recognizes outstanding achievement in teaching, sustaining (for at least four years), and enhancing an advanced undergraduate laboratory course or courses at U.S. institutions.

He earned the award “for decades of outstanding physics instruction, introducing undergraduates to advanced physics lab topics, for inspiring first-generation students to pursue graduate study and careers in physics, and for working with colleagues in the ALPhA community to improve laboratory instruction nationwide.”

Smith is a professor of physics at Francis Marion University in South Carolina.

Galileo Violini received the Joseph A. Burton Forum Award, which recognizes outstanding contributions to the public understanding or resolution of issues involving the interface of physics and society.

He earned the award “for establishing programs in physics education and research in Latin America and the Caribbean that increased regional scientific capacity, for promoting international scientific cooperation across continents and regions of the world, and for creating the Centro Internacional de Física in Colombia.”

Violini is the director emeritus of the Centro Internacional de Física in Colombia.

David A. Muller received the Joseph F. Keithley Award For Advances in Measurement Science, which recognizes physicists who have been instrumental in the development of measurement techniques or equipment that have an impact on the physics community by providing better measurements.

He earned the award “for pioneering a new generation of electron detectors and phase-sensitive reconstruction algorithms leading to significant advances in the resolution and capabilities of electron microscopes.”

Muller is the Samuel B. Eckert Professor of Engineering in the School of Applied and Engineering Physics at Cornell University in New York.

Edward W. Kolb received the Julius Edgar Lilienfeld Prize, which recognizes outstanding contributions to physics and exceptional skills in lecturing to diverse audiences.

He earned the award for “for pioneering and outstanding contributions to cosmology and particle physics, and an exceptional ability to communicate the extraordinary developments at the intersection of physics and cosmology to the general public.”

Kolb is the Arthur Holly Compton Distinguished Service Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of Chicago.

Jacques Prost received the Lars Onsager Prize, which recognizes outstanding research in theoretical statistical physics, including the quantum fluids.

He earned the prize “for influential contributions to the statistical physics of nonequilibrium phenomena and applications to soft matter and biological systems.”

Prost is the emeritus research director at the Curie Institute in France.

Mark Newman received the Leo P. Kadanoff Prize, which recognizes scientists whose theoretical, experimental, or computational achievements have opened new vistas for statistical and or nonlinear physics.

He earned the prize “for fundamental contributions to the statistical physics of complex networks.”

Newman is the Anatol Rapoport Distinguished University Professor of Physics and a professor in the Center for the Study of Complex Systems at the University of Michigan.

Robert J. Budnitz received the Leo Szilard Lectureship Award, which recognizes outstanding accomplishments by physicists in promoting the use of physics for the benefit of society in such areas as the environment, arms control, and science policy.

He earned the award “for outstanding leadership in formulating and guiding the US Nuclear Regulatory Research program in areas of reactor safety, waste management, and fuel-cycle safety, and for significantly advancing seismic probabilistic risk assessments as applied to nuclear power worldwide.”

Budnitz is now retired from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California.

Cailin Plunkett and Denisse Córdova Carrizales received the LeRoy Apker Award, which recognizes outstanding achievements in physics by undergraduate students, and provides encouragement to students who have demonstrated great potential for future scientific accomplishment.

Plunkett earned the award “For the development of a novel method to compute survey sensitivity to accreting protoplanets.”

Córdova Carrizales earned the award “For the development of a new method to intercalate Li into thin films of indium tin oxide.”

Plunkett graduated with a B.A. in physics from Amherst College and is now a graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Carrizales graduated with a B.A. in physics from Harvard College and is slated to become a graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Alison Patteson received the Maria Goeppert Mayer Award, which recognizes and enhances outstanding achievement by a woman physicist in the early years of her career, and provides opportunities for her to present these achievements to others through public lectures in the spirit of Maria Goeppert Mayer.

She earned the award “for important contributions in characterizing the physics of living systems, including demonstrating how mechanics influences the collective behavior of bacteria and how intermediate filaments in a cell's cytoskeleton impact its mechanics, migration, and signaling.”

Patteson is an assistant professor of physics at Syracuse University in New York.

Eric D. Siggia received the Max Delbrück Prize in Biological Physics, which recognizes outstanding achievement in biological physics research.

He earned the prize for powerful theoretical approaches to the physics of life and incisive connections between theory and experiment, from the mechanics of DNA to the dynamics of genetic networks, and from noise in gene expression to pattern formation in embryos and populations of stem cells.

Siggia is the Viola Ward Brinning and Elbert Calhoun Brinning Professor at Rockefeller University in New York.

Naomi Halas received the Mildred Dresselhaus Prize in Nanoscience or Nanomaterials, which recognizes an outstanding scientist in the areas of nanoscience or nanomaterials.

She earned the prize “for creating nanoparticles and complexes with tunable optical resonances resulting from hybridized surface plasmons, and demonstrating applications of these nanomaterials that range from photothermal cancer therapy to hot electron photodetection and modular plasmonic photocatalysis.”

Halas is the Stanley C. Moore Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Rice University in Texas.

Mitchell A. Wood received the Neil Ashcroft Early Career Award for Studies of Matter at Extreme High Pressure Conditions, which recognizes outstanding theoretical or experimental contributions by an early-career scientist to studies of matter at extreme high pressure conditions.

He earned the award “for the development and application of ground-breaking computational approaches to the study of complex physical processes in materials undergoing dynamic compression, including initiation in energetic materials, strength in metals, and phase change kinetics in compressed diamond.”

Wood is a principal member of the technical staff in the Center for Computing Research at Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico.

David DeMille, Gerald Gabrielse, and John M. Doyle received the Norman F. Ramsey Prize in Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics, and in Precision Tests of Fundamental Laws and Symmetries, which recognizes outstanding accomplishments in the two fields of Norman Ramsey: atomic, molecular, and optical physics; and precision tests of fundamental laws and symmetries.

They earned the prize “for pioneering work in molecular physics, cooling, and spectroscopy that has profoundly advanced the search for the electric dipole moment of the electron, and for placing stringent constraints on modifications to the Standard Model in a tabletop experiment.”

DeMille is a professor of physics at the University of Chicago. Gerald Gabrielse is the Board of Trustees Professor in Physics and the founding director of the Center for Fundamental Physics at Northwestern University in Illinois. Doyle is the Henry B. Silsbee Professor of Physics at Harvard University in Massachusetts.

Ashvin Vishwanath and Qikun Xue received the Oliver E. Buckley Condensed Matter Physics Prize, which recognizes outstanding theoretical or experimental contributions to condensed matter physics.

They earned the prize “for groundbreaking theoretical and experimental studies on the collective electronic properties of materials that reflect topological aspects of their band structure.”

Vishwanath is the George Vasmer Leverett Professor of Physics at Harvard University in Massachusetts. Xue is a professor of physics at Tsinghua University in China and vice president of the Chinese Physical Society.

Zhen-Gang Wang received the Polymer Physics Prize, which recognizes outstanding accomplishment and excellence of contributions in polymer physics research.

He earned the prize “for contributions to the theories of polymer physics in regard to nucleation, block polymer self-assembly, and polyelectrolytes, in particular, for the application of these theories to experimentally-motivated phenomena.”

Wang is the Dick and Barbara Dickinson Professor and Executive Officer of Chemical Engineering at the California Institute of Technology.

Lars Q. English received the Prize for a Faculty Member for Research in an Undergraduate Institution, which recognizes a physicist whose research in an undergraduate setting has achieved wide recognition and contributed significantly to physics and who has contributed substantially to the professional development of undergraduate physics students.

He earned the prize “for innovative experiments involving undergraduate students on nonlinear patterns in electrical lattices and networks that have elucidated the interplay of nonlinearity and geometry in the emergence of coherent spatial and temporal structures.”

English is a professor of physics at Dickinson College in Pennsylvania.

Manuela Campanelli received the Richard A. Isaacson Award in Gravitational-Wave Science, which recognizes outstanding contributions in gravitational-wave physics, gravitational-wave astrophysics, and the technologies that enable this science.

She earned the award “for extraordinary contributions to and leadership in the understanding and simulation of merging binaries of compact objects in strong-field gravity.”

Campanelli is a Distinguished Professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology.

Kaoru Yokoya received the Robert R. Wilson Prize for Achievement in the Physics of Particle Accelerators, which recognizes outstanding achievement in the physics of particle accelerators.

He earned the prize “for seminal contributions to the theory and control of beam polarization in electron storage rings, beam-beam interactions in linear colliders, crab-crossing and coherent beam-beam interactions in circular colliders, and bunched beam instabilities.” Yokoya is a research associate at the High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK) in Japan.

Shruti Puri received the Rolf Landauer and Charles H. Bennett Award in Quantum Computing, which recognizes recent outstanding contributions in quantum information science, especially using quantum effects to perform computational and information-management tasks that would be impossible or infeasible by purely classical means.

She earned the award “for advancing the theoretical understanding of quantum fault-tolerance in the presence of biased noise.”

Puri is an assistant professor in physics at Yale University in Connecticut.

Wit Busza received the Tom W. Bonner Prize in Nuclear Physics, which recognizes outstanding experimental research in nuclear physics, including the development of a method, technique, or device that significantly contributes to nuclear physics research.

He earned the prize “For pioneering work on multi-particle production in proton-nucleus and nucleus-nucleus collisions, including the discovery of participant scaling, and for the conception and leadership of the PHOBOS experiment.”

Busza is the Francis L. Friedman Professor of Physics Emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Vincent M. Donnelly received the Will Allis Prize for the Study of Ionized Gases, which recognizes outstanding contributions to understanding the physics of partially ionized plasmas and gases.

He earned the prize “for sustained, pioneering research elucidating fundamental physical and chemical mechanisms of plasma etching of microelectronic materials, enabled by the invention of novel plasma and plasma-surface diagnostics, including advanced optical spectroscopy and the 'spinning wall' method.

Donnelly is the John and Rebecca Moores Professor in the William A. Brookshire Department of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Houston.

David B. Tanner and Leslie J. Rosenberg received the W.K.H. Panofsky Prize in Experimental Particle Physics, which recognizes outstanding achievements in experimental particle physics.

They earned the prize “for leading the synthesis of precision microwave cavity techniques, superconducting quantum sensing, and cryogenic technology into the modern axion haloscope, and for the subsequent demonstration of experimental sensitivity to high-priority models of axions as dark matter.”

Tanner is a Distinguished Professor of Physics at the University of Florida. Rosenberg is a Professor Emeritus at the University of Washington.