We are pleased to announce the FRIB Theory Alliance summer school “Emergence of Collective Motion in Atomic Nuclei ” to be hosted at Michigan State University on August 19-22, 2025.
The summer school targets graduate students and postdocs within a few years of their Ph.D. Applications are now open, and more information is available at https://indico.frib.msu.edu/event/84/.
The application deadline is July 7.
In this summer school, we will discuss our current understanding of nuclear collective motion with emphasis on new developments relevant to the FRIB scientific program.
Lectures will include the theoretical frameworks applied to current examples and discuss possible new and exotic phenomena that can be studied at FRIB, such as the effects of weak binding and continuum coupling. Also planned are several hands-on activities to familiarize participants with some of the codes currently in use by the practitioners.
For selected participants we hope to provide partial support which may include lodging and meals. After registration closes, you will be contacted about the support we can provide.
Please forward this announcement to students and postdocs who might be interested in joining the summer school.
The school is made possible thanks to the support by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Nuclear Physics, under the FRIB Theory Alliance award DE-SC0013617.
Contact persons: Mitch Allmond (allmondjm@ornl.gov) and Augusto Macchiavelli (macchiavelao@ornl.gov)
The FRIB Users Organization Executive Committee and FRIB Theory Alliance Executive Board are pleased to announce the winners of the 2025 FRIB Achievement Award for Early Career Researchers.
The 2025 recipient for the Experimental Award is Dr. Erich Leistenschneider, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, for their innovative work on precision spectroscopy and techniques at FRIB.
The 2025 Theory Award recipient is Dr. Cole Pruitt, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory for their pioneering work on uncertainty quantified optical models.
The FRIB Achievement Award for Early Career Researchers was established to recognize outstanding original contributions to the field of nuclear physics through work at or relating to FRIB, performed by scientists early in their careers. The recipients will present their work during the plenary session at the Low Energy Community Meeting and receive a stipend to support their participation.
Please join us in congratulating this year's winners!
Andrea Richard and Calvin Johnson
on behalf of the FRIBUOEC and FRIBTAEB
Dr. Pooja Siwach, currently a postdoctoral fellow at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, has accepted a FRIB Theory Bridge faculty position in the Department of Physics at the University of Arizona. Her research lies at the intersection of nuclear structure, neutrino physics, and quantum computing. Congratulations, Pooja!
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
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.
Please join me in congratulating two of our members, Professors Dick Furnstahl (The Ohio State University) and Baha Balantekin (University of Wisconsin-Madison) for being awarded the 2025 APS Herman Feshbach and Hans A. Bethe Prizes, respectively.
The Herman Feshbach Prize Herman serves to recognize and encourage outstanding research in theoretical nuclear physics. Professor Furnstahl’s citation reads:
“For foundational contributions to calculations of nuclei, including applying the Similarity Renormalization Group to the nuclear force, grounding nuclear density functional theory in those forces, and using Bayesian methods to quantify the uncertainties in effective field theory predictions of nuclear observables."
The Hans A. Bethe Prize serves to recognize outstanding work in theory, experiment or observation in the areas of astrophysics, nuclear physics, nuclear astrophysics, or closely related fields. Professor Balantekin’s citation reads:
"For seminal contributions to neutrino physics and astrophysics — especially the neutrino flavor transformation problem — both for solar neutrinos and the nonlinear supernova environment."
In addition to doing great physics, Dick and Baha have been very engaged in serving and promoting the needs of the larger nuclear physics community. Both of them were very instrumental to the early success of the FRIB-TA, serving on the Executive Board from 2015-2020.
OHIO's Dr. Christian Drischler was recently recognized with the prestigious NSF CAREER Award for early-career faculty and scientists. Through funding from the award, Drischler will advance the scientific community's understanding of theoretical nuclear physics and nuclear astrophysics.
Visit https://www.ohio.edu/news/2024/09/dr-christian-drischler-receives-2024-nsf-career-award-advance-research-educate for additional information.
"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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