Harry Lustig Award — 2020 Recipient
Danielle Schaper of the University of Kentucky and Los Alamos National Laboratory wins the Harry Lustig Award
The Four Corners Section of the American Physical Society (APS/4CS) held its annual meeting virtually on October 23rd and 24th. Every year, one of the highlights of this meeting is the Harry Lustig Session, in which three finalists present their graduate school work in competition to win the Harry Lustig Award.
From our largest-ever field of nominations, the selection committee chose three finalists who demonstrated exceptional creativity and originality in their work; all three are producing work of great scientific merit. The three finalists were: Jacob Pettine of University of Colorado, Boulder and JILA, Danielle Schaper of the University of Kentucky and Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), and Joel Venzke of University of Colorado, Boulder and JILA.
Each finalist presented a virtual talk, with all of the challenges that entails, and answered questions from the virtual audience. After spirited discussion among the members of the committee, the winner was chosen: Danielle Schaper of the University of Kentucky and LANL who presented her work on “Precision Measurements of Parity Violation in Neutron-Nucleus Resonance States for Future Time-Reversal Violation Experiments”. Members of the committee commented specifically on the quality of her presentation, and the way in which she worked hard to make sure that everyone in the audience could be “on the same page”. Her talk was engaging and focused, and she did an exceptional job of carrying her enthusiasm for her subject through the internet to everyone’s screen.
Congratulations go out from the committee to all of the finalists and their mentors. Our gratitude also goes out to all of the nominees and their nominators. Every year, we are more convinced that the Four Corners Section is full of outstanding young researchers whom we are certain to hear from again. It’s always a challenge to narrow the field to just three finalists, and even more so to narrow it to a final winner!
About the Award: The Four Corners Section of the American Physical Society (APS/4CS) strongly supports the work of physics students and provides opportunities to present their research and to meet other physicists in the region, including scientists from colleges, universities, industry and government laboratories.
APS/4CS established the Harry Lustig Award in 2015 to encourage graduate-level physics study and to honor the memory of physics professor Harry Lustig. Among the criteria for finalists are overall scientific merit, creativity and originality and the quality of the candidate’s written description of the work. The winner is chosen based additionally on the caliber of their presentation and their responses to critical questions. Nominations are accepted beginning in July.