Waterloo researcher awarded 2019 Buchalter Cosmology Prize
The Buchalter Cosmology Prize is an annual award which recognizes “ground-breaking theoretical, observational, or experimental work in cosmology that has the potential to produce a breakthrough advance in our understanding.”
Professor Niayesh Afshordi was announced as a first-place recipient of the award for his paper “Echoes from the Abyss,” which examines a black hole created by the merger of two neutron stars. He shares the award with his co-author Jahed Abedi (Albert Einstein Institute).
Winning the Buchalter Prize is an honour that Afshordi hopes will be a catalyst for their work to “receive the critical scrutiny that it deserves from the community.”
Event Horizon Telescope team awarded 2020 Breakthrough Prize
The Breakthrough Prizes are annually awarded to honor important, primarily recent, achievements in the categories of Fundamental Physics, Life Sciences and Mathematics. The prizes are sponsored by Sergey Brin, Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg, Pony Ma, Yuri and Julia Milner, and Anne Wojcicki. Committees of previous laureates choose the winners from candidates nominated in a process that’s online and open to the public.
The 2020 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics was awarded to the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) team, of which Dr. Avery Broderick is a member. The citiation reads "For the first image of a supermassive black hole, taken by means of an Earth-sized alliance of telescopes."
Speaker in the Elizabeth Laird Memorial Lecture Series, 2019-20
This lecture series was initiated to honour the impressive career and accomplishments of Dr. Elizabeth Laird. Each year, one of the world's leading physicists is invited to bring their research to the general public, to share how their understanding of fundamentals is applied solving many of today's scientific and technological problems.
This year, the honour was given to Prof. Melanie Campbell, to discuss her discovery of putative optical signals to guide eye growth which follow a circadian rhythm, her collaborative work to capture the first real-time images of cone photoreceptors, and her work on the gradient index optics of the crystalline lens, its changes with aging, and effects of visual experience on its refractive index distribution.
President of the Biophysical Society of Canada
Biophysical Society of Canada (BSC) is an organization founded in 1985 to encourage and promote biophysics research in Canada through programs, meetings, awards, and outreach events. At first associated with the Canadian Federation of Biological Societies, BSC is now an independent, dynamic and diverse society with membership from across Canada.
Prof. Zoya Leonenko, previously the Vice President of the Biophysical Society of Canada, began her presidency of the organization in June 2019.
Donna Strickland is appointed to the Order of Canada
On December 28, Her Excellency the Right Honourable Julie Payette, Governor General of Canada announced 120 new appointments to the Order of Canada. The new member list included Donna Strickland, Companion of the Order of Canada, appointed for “contributions to optical physics and for her innovative developments in ultra-fast optical science.” Companion of the Order of Canada is the highest of three levels of the Order of Canada. There can be no more than 165 living companions at any time.
"I feel so proud and privileged to be Canadian and I am thrilled to receive this recognition from my country. It is an exceptional honour for me to be named a companion of the Order of Canada. This award means a great deal to me."
Dr. Giacomo Torlai receives the 2020 Nicholas Metropolis Award
Nicholas Metropolis Award for Outstanding Doctoral Thesis Work in Computational Physics recognizes doctoral thesis research of outstanding quality and achievement in computational physics and encourages effective written and oral presentation of research results. It is awarded by the American Physical Society, annually.
The citation reads, "For his pioneering achievements in adopting machine learning technology, especially restricted Boltzmann Machines, into the field of condensed matter and quantum information physics." Dr. Torlai completed his Ph.D. in 2018. His work with Dr. Roger Melko was previously featured last Spring.
