C.N. Yang Institute for Theoretical Physics

We're proud that Sam Homiller will receive the American Physics Society's 2021 J.J. and Noriko Sakurai Dissertation Award in Theoretical Particle Physics

https://www.aps.org/programs/honors/prizes/particle.cfm

This national award is presented annually to "exceptional young scientists who have performed original doctoral thesis work of outstanding scientific quality and achievement in the area of theoretical particle physics." Sam's dissertation has been singled out for his work on the Higgs boson, in and beyond the Standard Model. He is cited "for the discovery of novel methods to elucidate the property of the Higgs, and qualitatively new possibilities for Higgs physics overlooked for many years.” Sam's advisor was Patrick Meade, and he also spent a year at Brookhaven National Laboratory, working with Sally Dawson and others, after winning a Department of Energy Graduate Student Fellowship.

Rouven Essig was named a winner of the 2021 New Horizons Prizes in Physics, "For advances in the detection of sub-GeV dark matter especially in regards to the SENSEI experiment." Three New Horizons prizes are awarded annually for work by junior scientists (a relative term), by the Breakthrough Prize organization. Rouven's co-winners for this prize are our former postdoc, Tien-Tien Yu, now on the faculty at Oregon, together with Tomer Volansky of Tel Aviv, and Javier Tiffenberg of Fermilab.

Every year, Institute graduates go on to the next step in their careers.  The summer of 2020 is no exception, although so much about the experience seems to have changed.  With dedicated support from the faculty and staff of the YITP and Department of Physics and Astronomy, however, the Institute's students reached this year's milestones.  We go into the coming year with renewed confidence in the continuity of the Institute's traditions of  mentorship and research, for students and postdocs alike.

From May to August, we had seven thesis defenses, all on-line.   Because of the distancing and relocations associated with the pandemic, these events were necessarily multi-location, and some were even multi-continent.   With remote access, we may have lacked the shared toasts and treats afterward, but every defense was well-attended, and an occasion for warm expressions of congratulation.

As it turns out, this year, all of this group of graduates have chosen to go on to postdoctoral research positions in fields directly related to their areas of study.   These 2020 graduates are listed below in the order of their thesis defenses, with their dissertation titles, names of advisors and the locations of their postdoctoral positions.   Although not every field of study is represented in this group, the list gives a sense of the breadth of the Institute's research.

Congratulations to the new Ph.D.s!  We hope to see them, not only online, but back at Stony Brook when the times allow.