College Park, MD, 31 January 2006—The American Institute of Physics (AIP) announces the winners of the 2006 Dannie Heineman Prizes for Astrophysics and for Mathematical Physics.
The Mathematical Physics Prize for 2006 goes to Sergio Ferrara of CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research), Daniel Freedman of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Peter van Nieuwenhuizen of the State University of New York at Stony Brook “for constructing supergravity, the first supersymmetric extension of Einstein’s general relativity, and for their central role in its subsequent development.”
The Astrophysics Prize for 2006 goes to Marc Davis of the University of California at Berkeley, “for his pioneering work on the large-scale structure in the Universe.” The committee choosing the Prize winner recognized Davis for “his innovative and influential contributions to observations, simulations and instrumentation, and his outstanding mentoring of students, as examples of outstanding work in the field of astrophysics.”
The Mathematical Physics Prize is awarded on behalf of the Heineman Foundation by the AIP and the American Physical Society (APS) and will be presented at the 2006 April APS meeting. The Astrophysics prize is awarded by the AIP and the American Astronomical Society (AAS) and will be presented at a future AAS meeting.
Sergio Ferrara was born in Rome, Italy, on May 2, 1945; he graduated from the University of Rome in 1968. Since then he has worked as a researcher at the Frascati National Laboratories; as a CNRS Visiting Scientist at the Laboratoire de Physique Theorique, Ecole Normale Superieure, Paris, and at the Theoretical Studies Division at CERN, Geneva. In 1980 he was made a full professor of theoretical physics in Italy. He became a staff member of the Theory Division at CERN in 1981 and a Professor of Physics at the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1985. Since 1986 he has been a senior staff member of the Physics Department at CERN.
Daniel Freedman was born in Hartford, Connecticut in 1939. He received a BA degree from Wesleyan University in 1960 and a PhD from the University of Wisconsin in 1964. After postdoctoral fellowships at Imperial College, London, University of California, Berkeley, and the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, Freedman joined the faculty of the (now C. N. Yang) Institute for Theoretical Physics at the State University of New York, Stony Brook in 1968. In 1980 he became a faculty member at the Massachusetts Institute f Technology where he is now Professor of Applied Mathematics and Professor of Physics.
Peter van Nieuwenhuizen was born in Utrecht, the Netherlands, on October 26, 1938. He studied physics and mathematics at the University of Utrecht and obtained a Ph.D. with M.Veltman as adviser. After his studies in Utrecht he went to CERN, the Ecole Normale Supérieure (then at Orsay, now at Paris), and Brandeis University (Waltham), each for two-year periods. In 1975 he joined the faculty of the (now C.N. Yang-) Institute for Theoretical Physics of the State University of New York at Stony Brook, NY. He became there a Distinguished Professor, and succeeded C.N. Yang in 1999 as Director. He was also the Teyler professor of physics at Leyden University (the Netherlands) from 1985 till 1995.
Marc Davis was born in Canton, Ohio on September 8, 1947. He attended MIT, and received a PhD in physics in 1973 at Princeton University. He stayed at Princeton until 1975, when he went to Harvard University. In 1982 he became a full professor at the University of California at Berkeley, where he has worked ever since. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Astronomical Society, the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, and is a fellow of the American Physical Society.
The American Institute of Physics is a membership corporation established to promote the advancement and diffusion of the knowledge of physics and its application to human welfare. It serves its 10 Member Societies through a variety of programs, services and publications.
The American Physical Society is the largest professional organization of physicists in the US. Its main goal is to advance and diffuse the knowledge of physics.
The American Astronomical Society is the major organization of professional astronomers in North America. The basic objective of the AAS is to promote the advancement of astronomy and closely related branches of science.
The Heineman Foundation was founded by Dannie Heineman, an engineer, business executive and admirer of the accomplishments of physicists and astrophysicists.
AIP Home page: www.aip.org
AAS page on Prizes: www.aas.org/grants/index.htm
APS page on Prizes: www.aps.org/praw/index.cfm
