JILA News

Theorist Ana Maria Rey has received a 2013 MacArthur Fellowship, or “Genius Grant.” She is the third JILA Fellow to win a genius grant, joining Deborah Jin (2003) and Margaret Murnane (2000). The MacArthur Fellowship includes a $625,000 unrestricted grant. Rey was cited for being an “atomic Physicist advancing our ability to simulate, manipulate, and control novel states of matter through fundamental conceptual research on ultra-cold atoms.”

Ana Maria Rey of JILA and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has won the 2014 Maria Goeppert Mayer Award of the American Physical Society. Rey is one of the world’s top young theoretical physicists. Her specialty is atomic, molecular, and optical physics, an area in which she has shown a remarkable talent for suggesting practical applications of her theory to key experiments. Her hallmark collaborations at JILA and NIST include the fields of ultracold molecules, neutral-atom optical lattice atomic clocks, and quantum simulations. In addition to groundbreaking work at NIST and JILA, Rey collaborates with leading scientists around the world.

James Thompson has been named the winner of a 2013 Department of Commerce Bronze Medal for his work on pioneering superradiant lasers. The superradiant laser is a quantum device that emits coherent lasing photons.

Theorist Ana Maria Rey has been given the 2013 “Great Minds in STEM” Most Promising Scientist Award. The honor is also known as the HENAAC (Hispanic Engineer National Achievement Awards Conference) Award.

JILA researchers garnered two Outstanding Presentation awards at the Boulder Laboratories 10^th annual  Postdoctoral Poster Symposium held on July 17, 2013. Bryce Gadway, a research associate in the Ye group, was recognized for his presentation “Realizing a Lattice Spin System with Ultracold Polar Molecules.” Gadway’s co-authors included poster co-presenter Jacob Covey as well as Bo Yan, Steve Moses, Kaden Hazzard, Ana Maria Rey, Deborah Jin, and Jun Ye. Covey was cited for doing a commendable job as a presenter.

Michael Foss-Feig has won the American Physical Society's Division of Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics (DAMOP) Award for outstanding doctoral thesis research in atomic, molecular, and optical physics. The award was announced at the 44th annual DAMOP meeting, held in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada, June 3–7, 2013.

Carl Lineberger joined fellow National Science Board members France Cordova (Chair of the Board, Smithsonian Institution) and Arnold Stancell (Vice President, Mobil Oil, ret.) on a whirlwind fact-finding tour of Antarctica November 26–30, 2012. The trio visited science and engineering facilities at the McMurdo and South Pole Stations, as well as field research sites in the Dry Valleys and historic huts on Ross Island.

Fellow Cindy Regal,  recent JILA grad Matthew Squires (Anderson group, Ph.D. 2008),  former postdoc Wen Li (Kapteyn/Murnane group), and JILA grad Ian Coddington (Cornell group, Ph. D. 2004) have received prestigeous Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers, according to a White House press release issued July 23. Each award is for $1 million over 5 years.

Fellow Ana Maria Rey is Woman Physicist of the Month for June. Rey is  theorist working on many complicated problems in Atomic, Molecular, and Optical (AMO) Physics.  She is well known for her collaborations at JILA with experimentalists Deborah Jin and Jun Ye as well as theorist Murray Holland, CU theorists Victor Guarie and Michael Hermele, and physicists at institutions in the United States and abroad.

The U.S. Senate confirmed JILA Fellow Carl Lineberger on August 2 as a member of the National Science Board. He was nominated for the position by President Barack Obama in April. As a member of the National Science Board, Lineberger's duties will include helping to establish the policies of the National Science Foundation. The National Science Board also serves as an advisory board to the president and Congress on issues involving science and engineering.

On April 7, 2011, the White House announced that President Obama intends to nominate JILA Fellow W. Carl Lineberger to the National Science Board, National Science Foundation, one of the nation's most important science policy organizations. The board sets policy for the National Science Foundation and serves as a key advisory organization to the President and Congress on science, engineering, and education. Lineberger’s nomination will take place soon. He will then be considered for confirmation by the U. S. Senate.