Prizes & Awards

The Ken Hass Outstanding Student Paper Award

Nominations Sought for Ken Hass Outstanding Student Paper Award

The purpose of this award is to recognize an outstanding student paper addressing the subject of industrial applications of physics. A nominated paper must be submitted to a sorting category or a focus session sponsored or co-sponsored by the Forum on Industrial & Applied Physics (FIAP) at the APS March meeting. The single award consists of $1,000 and a certificate citing the name of the recipient and the title of the paper to be awarded annually at the FIAP business meeting during the March Meeting.

Establishment & Support: The Ken Hass Outstanding Student Paper Award is named in recognition the many contributions of Ken Hass to the industrial applications of physics (especially automotive applications of theoretical solid-state physics) and of his service to the APS in the FIAP Chair-line from 2001 to 2004. As Director of the Physics Department at Ford Research, Ken Hass, was strongly committed to promoting science education at the pre-college and college level. The award was endowed in 2011 by FIAP.

Rules and Eligibility: The student nominated for the award must be the lead author of the paper and must present the paper at the APS March meeting, with a subject matter pertinent to applied industrial physics. The nominee must be a student at the time of the submission deadline for the meeting. Both graduate and undergraduate students are eligible.

Nomination and Selection Process: The deadline for submission of nominations is two weeks before the start of the APS March meeting. The nomination must include

  • The abstract submitted to the APS March meeting and the abstract number (like Z32.00008).
  • A letter of nomination from the student’s faculty advisor or industrial/government lab mentor, citing the achievements of the student, his/her contributions to the research described in the abstract, and the industrial or commercial relevance of this research. (Self-nominations will not be accepted.)
  • Email address for the student and the nominator
  • Email the nomination to industry@aps.org

The award-winning abstract will be selected by a committee appointed by the FIAP Chair. The student winner and the person who nominated them will be invited to FIAP Business Meeting where the student will receive the award. This is typically an evening session during the March Meeting and is listed in the Epitome.

Note: Sessions sponsored by FIAP each year can be determined by visiting the on-line Session Index for the March Meeting and filtering the sessions by sponsor FIAP. Only papers presented in these sessions are eligible for the Prize.

Current Winner

2023

Ken Hass Outstanding Student Paper Award

The purpose of this award is to recognize an outstanding student paper addressing the subject of industrial applications of physics.

Ruinan Zhou, University of California, Berkeley

(Advisor: Professor Frances Hellman)

T34.00013: Role of hydrogen in amorphous silicon – new mechanism of suppressing photon absorption

 

Lucas L. Enright, National Institute of Standards and Technology

(Advisor: Nathan D. Orloff)

N34.00010 : Developing a standard reference material for mmWave dielectrics

Previous Winners

2022

Outstanding paper:

The purpose of this award is to recognize an outstanding student paper addressing the subject of industrial applications of physics.

Haley B. Woolf, New Mexico State University
(Stefan Zollner & Matt Kim advisors)
T00.282 : Optical and x-ray characterization of Ge-Sn alloys on GaAs

2020

Outstanding paper:
Andrew Ylitalo
Caltech
"Microfluidic Approach to Study Bubble Nucleation in Polymeric Foams for the Development of DFT-based Models"
Session S33: Physics of Foams: Fundamentals and Applications, Abstract S33.3

Runner-up:
Rahul Trivedi
Stanford
"Fundamental limits on the performance of electromagnetic devices"
Session L27: Experimental Optical/Laser Devices and Applications, Abstract L27.02

2019

Outstanding paper:
Milinda Pattanayak
Texas Tech University
"Current-induced resistivity switching in VO2 micro-electronic oscillators"
Session K33: Phase Change Materials, Memristors, and Neuromorphic Computing, Abstract K33.11

2018

Outstanding paper:
Fatemeh Barati
UC Riverside
"Hot carrier-enhanced interlayer electron–hole pair multiplication in 2D semiconductor heterostructure photocells"
Session P20: Recent Advances in Solar Photovoltaics, Abstract P20.05

Runner-up:
Wennie Wang
UC Santa Barbara
"Tuning the Optical Properties of Complex Oxides for Energy Applications"
Session B32: Computational Modeling of Electronic Materials for Energy Applications, Abstract B32.03

2017

Outstanding paper:
Daniel Lim
CalTech
"Fabrication of Converging and Diverging Polymeric Microlens Arrays By Spatiotemporal Control of Thermocapillary Forces"
Session V18: Function from Geometry: 3D Printing to Programable Matter II, Abstract 18.09

Runner-up:
Vetle Risinggård
Norwegian University of Science and Technology
"Universal absence of Walker breakdown for spin — orbit and spin Hall torque driven domain walls"
Session R47: Spin-Orbit Torque III and Chiral Domain Walls, Abstract R47.06

2016

Outstanding paper:
Thomas O’Connor
Johns Hopkins University
“Chain Ends and the Ultimate Tensile Strength of Polyethylene Fibers”
Session H33: Where Simulation, Theory, and Experiment Meet Across Time Scales, H33.11

Runner-ups:
Kai Wagner
Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden
“Magnetic domain walls as reconfigurable spin-wave nano-channels”
Session E6: Spin Excitations in Ultrathin Films, Nanostructures and Domain Walls, E6.10

Iris Stone
George Mason University
“The Effects of Stoichiometry on the Optical Properties of PTZ-TCNQ Charge Transfer Crystals”
Session Y33: Organic Electronics and Photonics - Spin Transport and Photophysics, Y33.13

2013

Outstanding papers:
John L. Lyons
UC Santa Barbara
“How localized acceptors limit p-type conductivity in GaN"
Session B23: Dopants and Defects in Semiconductors II, Abstract B23.00004

Alexander Slepko
Univ. Texas at Austin
“Electrical Resisitivity in Metals and Metallic Alloys from First Principles”
Session Y21: Semiconductors: Thermodynamic & Transport Properties (Theory), Abstract Y21.00012

2012

Outstanding paper:
Jose Sanchez-Perez
University of Wisconsin Madison
“Direct-bandgap infrared light emission from tensilely strained germanium nanomembranes,”
Session Q28: Applications of Semiconductors, Dielectrics, Complex Oxides, Abstract Q28.0009

Runner-ups: none

2011

Outstanding paper:
Xingxian Shou, Case Western Reserve University
"The suppression of dominant acoustic frequencies in MRI,"
Session D21: Focus Session (GIMS): Novel Instrumentation & Measurements for Biomedical Research D21.00006

Runner-ups:
Christopher Jaworski
The Ohio State University
"The spin-Seebeck effect in a GaMnAs/MnAs bilayer,"
Session J15: Focus Session (DMP, GMAG, FIAP): Spins in Semiconductors - Spin Currents II J15.00004

Liu Zhiqi
National University of Singapore
"Nonlinear Insulator in Complex Oxides,"
Session W12: Electronic Transport in Novel Materials and Nanostructures (FIAP) W12.00012.