DAMOP Student Travel Support
The number of students who attend the DAMOP annual meeting grows every year. This year the student registrants surpassed 50% at 515 out of a total of 1120. DAMOP Student Travel Support assists many students who might not otherwise be able to attend. This year 153 students applied and 85 students received $500 each in travel support. We thank the DAMOP Education Committee chaired by Jan Chaloupka (University of Northern Colorado) for their hard work in writing proposals to the funding agencies. This year, we thank NIST, ARO, AFOSR, NSF, and DAMOP for their generous financial support. Keep your eyes on upcoming newsletters and broadcast emails for information on how to apply for DAMOP 2011 Student Travel Support.
Plenary Prize Session
It is never too early to start thinking about nominations for the various prizes and awards sponsored by DAMOP and by the APS. Most prizes have a July 1 deadline except for the Thesis Prize, which typically has a December 1 deadline. An award nomination packet includes a substantial amount of supporting material so please do not wait until the last minute to prepare your nomination. More information on prizes of interest to the DAMOP community.
2010 Davison-Germer Prize
From: APS web page
Recipient: Chris Greene, JILA, University of Colorado
Citation: "For seminal contributions to theoretical AMO physics, including dissociative recombination, ultracold matter, and high-harmonic generation, and for the prediction of 'trilobite' long-range molecules."
Background: Chris Greene has been a Fellow of JILA and Professor of Physics at the University of Colorado at Boulder since 1989. His doctorate in theoretical atomic physics was earned in 1980 from the University of Chicago, under his advisor Ugo Fano. His undergraduate degree was in math and physics from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 1976, with an honors thesis supervised by Donal Burns. A one-year postdoctoral stint in Richard Zare's group at Stanford was then followed by 7.5 years on the faculty at Louisiana State University. Dr. Greene's theoretical research interests cover much of atomic, molecular, and optical physics, notably few-body processes in ultracold gases, dissociative recombination in electron collisions with molecular ions, photon-atom and photon-molecule interactions, and molecular Rydberg state behavior. Dr. Greene belongs to the American Physical Society, with service as DAMOP chair in 2002-3, the American Chemical Society, and the Optical Society of America. Other awards he has received to date include the 1991 I. I. Rabi Prize of the American Physical Society, a Visiting Miller Professorship at the University of California-Berkeley in 2007, and an Alexander von Humboldt Award for Senior U.S. Scientists in 2007. He was also an NSF Presidential Young Investigator and an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellow.
2010 Will Allis Prize
From: APS web page
Recipient: Mark J. Kushner, University of Michigan
Citation: "For ground-breaking contributions to developing and applying hybrid plasma models that have advanced the fundamental understanding of the chemistry, surface kinetics, and energy transport in low temperature plasmas."
Background: Mark J. Kushner received the BS in Nuclear Engineering and the BA in Astronomy from the University of California at Los Angeles in 1976; and the MS and Ph.D. in Applied Physics from the California Institute of Technology in 1977 and 1979. He served on the technical staffs of Sandia National Laboratory and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory before joining Spectra Technology where he was Director of Electron, Atomic, and Molecular Physics. In 1986, Dr. Kushner joined the faculty at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where he was the Founder Professor of Engineering in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering while also serving in many administrative roles. In January 2005, Dr. Kushner became Dean of Engineering and the Melsa Professor of Engineering at Iowa State University where he established the Engineering Policy and Leadership Institute and initiated the 2050 Challenge to focus education, research and outreach on addressing the most pressing of societal issues. Prof. Kushner joined the University of Michigan as founding director of the Michigan Institute for Plasma Science and Engineering and George I. Haddad Collegiate Professor in September 2008. Prof. Kushner's research area is low temperature plasmas, their fundamental properties and technological applications, ranging from lasers to material processing. He is a Fellow of the APS, IEEE, Optical Society of America, American Vacuum Society and Institute of Physics. He is on the editorial boards of several journals and editor-in-chief of Plasma Sources Science and Technology. Prof. Kushner has received the Semiconductor Research Corp. Technical Excellence Award, the Tegal Thinker Award for Plasma Etch Technology, the AVS Plasma Science and Technology Award, IEEE Plasma Science and Applications Award and the Semiconductor Industry Association University Researcher Award.
Graduate Student Thesis Prize Session
We would like to recognize and congratulate all participants in the thesis prize session. The selection process includes evaluation of the packets of supporting material and their presentations at the conference. In order of appearance this year's finalists were: Kang-Kuen NI (Cal. Tech.), Christian Schunck (MIT), Steven Olmschenk, (U. of Mich.), Qi Shou, (JQI-U. of Maryland). Each year, the DAMOP Thesis Prize Committee takes on the difficult job of selecting the finalists from numerous excellent nominations. Their committee work isn't over until the winner is selected. This year we thank Liz McCormack (Bryn Mawr) and her committee for their efforts. The committee met after the Thesis Prize session at DAMOP 2010 and selected Kang-Kuen Ni as the winner. Committee work begins again this fall with Ana Maria Rey (JILA, University of Colorado) as the new chair of the Thesis Prize Committee. The nomination deadline is December 1, 2010 and Ana Maria can be contacted for any questions you may have.
About this Year's DAMOP Thesis Prize Recipient
Kang-Kuen NI, California Institute of Technology
Kang-Kuen Ni grew up in Taiwan where she graduated from Hsinchu Experimental High School in 2000. She then moved across the ocean to attend the University of California at Santa Barbara. During her undergraduate studies, she participated in UC LEADS (Leadership Excellence through Advanced Degrees) and joined research projects ranging from astrophysics and gravitational physics to condensed matter physics. In 2003, she began doctoral studies at the University of Colorado, Boulder, where she joined the research group of Prof. Carl Wieman at JILA and where she was awarded a NSF graduate fellowship. Kang-Kuen's doctoral dissertation, completed under the supervision of Dr. Deborah Jin and Dr. Jun Ye, describes the first experimental realization of an ultracold, near quantum degenerate gas of polar molecules. This work opens new research directions in ultralow-energy chemical reactions, quantum phase transitions, and quantum information science. After completion of her PhD in 2009, Kang-Kuen joined Prof. Jeff Kimble's group at Caltech as a Center of Physics Information postdoctoral fellow.
Undergraduate Research Session
Each year the number of undergraduates participating in our annual meeting grows, and everyone is always impressed by the quality of their work. From the pool of undergraduate participants, we congratulate the few who were selected and accepted invitations to speak in the Undergraduate Research Session held on Thursday morning. Their presentations were fabulous and spanned a wide variety of research topics. Many thanks are due to the DAMOP Education Committee, Jan Chaloupka [chair] (University of Northern Colorado), Tom Donnelley (Harvey Mudd), and Kat Gillen‑Christandl (Cal Poly), Barry Walker (Univ. of Delaware) for organizing this session. Barry Walker, is the new chair of the Education Committee.