Presidential Awards for Two Tennessee Physicists
September 20, 2004
Two outstanding young scientists with ties to UT physics have won the prestigious Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers.
Saskia Mioduszewski and Jian Shen were among 57 researchers receiving the highest honor the U.S. government bestows on scientists and engineers at the outset of their careers. Dr. John Marburger, Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, presented the awards in a ceremony at the White House on September 9.
Dr. Mioduszewski and Dr. Shen were also honored with two of the four Department of Energy Office of Science Early Career Scientist and Engineer Awards presented at DOE Headquarters earlier in the day.
Dr. Mioduszewski earned her Ph.D. in physics at UT in 1999. As a graduate student working with Dr. Kenneth Read and Dr. Soren Sorensen, she joined the PHENIX (Pioneering High Energy Nuclear Interaction eXperiment) research team at Brookhaven National Lab's Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider. PHENIX investigates high-energy collisions of heavy ions and protons. Dr. Mioduszewski, who is still a part of the collaboration, was honored for her study of the properties of the unusual matter formed in extremely high-energy nuclear collisions produced at RHIC.
Dr. Shen is a member of Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Condensed Matter Sciences Division. He is a close collaborator of Dr. Ward Plummer, a UT-ORNL Distinguished Scientist in physics. Dr. Jian is soon to be an adjunct professor of physics at the university and includes UT physics graduate students in his research program. He was honored for his pioneering approach to the study of magnetism in nanostructured materials synthesis.
The Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers was established in 1996 to honor the most promising beginning researchers in the nation within their fields. Each honoree receives a citation, a plaque, and a commitment for continued funding of their work from their agency for five years.
More information is available on the Web:
For information on the PECASE awards from the Office of Science and Technology Policy: http://www.ostp.gov/html/PECASErelease2003.pdf
For information, including biographies, on the PECASE winners from the Department of Energy: http://www.sc.doe.gov/
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