2024 FRIB Achievement Award for Early Career Researchers - call for nominations
Submission deadline extended to 11pm EST on March 21, 2024

The Facility for Rare Isotope Beams is pleased to open nominations for the 2024 FRIB Achievement Award for Early Career Researchers. The awards are intended to recognize one outstanding experimentalist and one outstanding theorist in nuclear science, no more than six years past their PhD award date at the time of the nomination deadline, who have made a significant contribution toward FRIB science. This contribution need not directly involve a FRIB experiment. Awardees will receive a plaque with the awardee's name and institution and $3,000 participant support to attend the annual Low Energy Community Meeting (LECM); this year to be held at the UT Conference Center in Knoxville, Tennessee from August 7-9, where they will deliver a plenary talk on their awarded work.

Nominations, due by 11pm EST on March 21, 2024, require three letters of support (one of which should be the nominator’s), a one-page summary from the nominee of the contribution and impact of their work on FRIB science, CV, and copies of up to three related publications. Self-nominations will not be accepted.

After submitting the nomination form, supporting documents i.e. the letters, summary, CV and preprints must be emailed as one full submission by the primary nominator to the FRIB UOEC Secretary, Andrea Richard {richarda1 AT ohio DOT edu (richarda1@ohio.edu)} by March 21, 2024. The subject line of the email should read “FRIB early career award 2024” “Nominee’s full name” “either THEORY or EXPERIMENT”. The primary nominator must also complete the form, found here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1nbSe6k64Jly2wyDpNJv9JN1TNBJT4CEym23So5YT-XQ/edit

Please check the document here for full details of the award, eligibility, selection criterion and procedure.

Questions regarding the nomination process may be directed to the chair of FRIBUOEC Andrew Ratkiewicz (ratkiewicz1 AT llnl DOT gov).

Thank you,
Andrea Richard (OhioU), Secretary of the FRIB Users Organization Executive Committee

Announcing TALENT Course 7: Nuclear theory for astrophysics, at the ECT* (Trento, Italy) 15 July to 2 August 2024

A new edition of the TALENT Course 7: Nuclear theory for astrophysics will be held at the ECT* (Trento, Italy) from 15 July to 2 August 2024. It will provide the attendees with high level training on nuclear physics and nuclear astrophysics from various perspectives that include the Equation of State (EOS), neutron star mergers, and supernovae – and their combined impact in spearheading the brand new era of multi-messenger astronomy. The key lecturers will be Almudena Arcones, Bruno Giacomazzo, and Jorge Piekarewicz, as well as other experts in the various fields of relevance to the school. See the course webpage https://indico.ectstar.eu/event/221/overview for more information and registration. Please note that the deadline for application is 10 May.

Announcement of FRIB theory fellow for 2024

The FRIB Theory Alliance conducted a search for a new FRIB theory fellow in the Fall of 2023. The search committee received excellent applications and selected a shortlist of five. The interviews took place in-person at FRIB in December 2023. Following the recommendation of the search committee Francesca Bonaiti was selected as the new FRIB theory fellow. Francesca’s research is focused on the calculation of electromagnetic reaction observables such as electric dipole polarizabilities and isoscalar monopole resonances, which strongly correlate with parameters of the nuclear equation of state. As FRIB theory fellow, Francesca aims to extend ab initio calculations of these quantities to neutron-rich nuclei, where constraints on the nuclear equation of state can be obtained in synergy with future experiments at FRIB. Her research in nuclear many-body physics also has potential implications for research at the interface of nuclear structure and astrophysics, for instance in studies of beta-decay rates, which are a key input for nucleosynthesis simulations. Francesca will be hosted by Oak Ridge National Laboratory starting in Fall 2024. Please join the FRIB-TA in congratulating Francesca and wishing her much success!

For more details on Fellows see Supported Scientists

Call for FRIB Theory Alliance Bridge Partner - Deadline March 15th, 2024

The FRIB Theory Alliance's (FRIB-TA) Bridge Program is one of several FRIB-TA initiatives that foster advancements in theory associated with the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams. The Bridge Program aims to enhance opportunities for hiring faculty at universities and staff at national laboratories who conduct theoretical research in low-energy nuclear physics, nuclear astrophysics, and quantum many-body theory that is relevant to FRIB's scientific program.

Each bridge position will support a new faculty member at a university or a new staff member at a national laboratory through a 50% cost-share with the host institution for up to six years. For this round of the program we seek proposals for bridge hires where the search would be run in Academic Year 2024-5, with a view to having the new faculty or staff member in the position in Fall 2025.

The FRIB-TA invites all departments at universities and national laboratories that participate in FRIB-TA science (see fribtheoryalliance.org) and are interested in partnering with the FRIB-TA through the Bridge Program to submit a proposal. Further details and guidance in preparing the proposals are available at http://fribtheoryalliance.org/content/Resources/procedures.php. For clarifications, please contact the FRIB-TA managing director Scott Bogner (bogner@frib.msu.edu).

The proposals should be sent electronically to the Chair of the FRIB-TA Bridge Committee, Jon Engel engelj@physics.unc.edu, cc to Gillian Olson olson@frib.msu.edu, by March 15, 2024.

We intend to make the selection no later than March 31, 2024. Provided funding remains available as expected, the results will be made public through the FRIB-TA web page and communicated to all applicants.

FRIB Theory Alliance Bridge Faculty Member Earns NSF Career Award

Sebastian König, an assistant professor of physics at North Carolina State University (NC State) and FRIB Theory Alliance (FRIB-TA) bridge faculty member, has received a Faculty Early Career Development Award from the National Science Foundation (NSF). The award, also known as the NSF CAREER award, is one of the highest awards the foundation bestows upon young faculty in the sciences. https://frib.msu.edu/news/2021/nsf-career.html

Paul Gueye, The (Hidden) Shades of Physics - Perspectives of being a Black Physicist

Paul Gueye, Associate Professor of Physics at Michigan State University National Superconduction Cyclotron Laboratory shares The (Hidden) Shades of Physics - Perspectives of being a Black Physicist

FRIB Theory Alliance EUSTIPEN Program
EUSTIPEN Mission: The Europe-U.S. Theory Institute for Physics with Exotic Nuclei (EUSTIPEN) has been established in order to facilitate collaborations between U.S.-based and Europe-based scientists whose main research thrust is in the area of the physics of nuclei. U.S. participation in EUSTIPEN is in the form of travel grants and subsistence grants to ECT* in Trento to those individuals who are interested in collaborating with European scientists. EUSTIPEN’s purview is in the area of physics of or with exotic nuclei, including nuclear structure and reaction theory, nuclear astrophysics, and tests of the standard model using exotic nuclei. Funding for EUSTIPEN is being provided through the FRIB Theory Alliance by the Office of Nuclear Physics of the U. S. Department of Energy.

If you have an interest in forging new or continuing collaborations with European colleagues, this travel grant is for you. Students and postdocs are encouraged to apply.

For additional information regarding EUSTIPEN click here.

FRIB theory alliance bridge position at OU

Dr Christian Drischler, an FRIB theory fellow since 2020 at MSU, has accepted a tenure-track faculty position in the Physics Department of Ohio University, under the FRIB-TA bridge program.

Christian’s research includes applications of chiral effective theory and many-body perturbation theory to nuclear matter equation of state and neutron stars, as well as Bayesian methods and emulators for nuclear scattering and reactions. Congratulations Christian!

FRIB-TA Bridge Faculty member Maria Piarulli is a winner of a 2021 DOE-SC Early Career Award

Five scientists who will perform research at FRIB have received 2021 U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science (DOE-SC) Early Career Research Program. https://frib.msu.edu/news/2021/early-career-awards-2021.html

FRIB theory alliance bridge position at FSU
Dr. Kevin Fossez, an FRIB theory fellow since 2019 at ANL, has accepted a tenure-track faculty position in the Physics department of Florida State University. His research is on the boundaries of nuclear structure and nuclear reactions, and his interests overlap strongly with the FSU experimental program. Congratulations Kevin!
Our mission

Foster advancements in theory related to diverse areas of FRIB science

"FRIB is a discovery machine. It will enable researchers to investigate what holds together the atomic nuclei were made of and how those elements were created.To understand that, scientists study rare isotopes."

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