View additional description of awards won by PHAS faculty and staff members

2012

Faculty

Gordon Seminoff received the 2012 CAP Medal for Lifetime Achievement in Physics, for his seminal contributions to quantum field theory, statistical mechanics and condensed matter physics.

Michael Hasinoff received the 2012 Faculty of Science Achievement Award in the faculty category, for his dedication to student development and services, and his leadership role as the Physics & Astronomy Undergraduate Program Chair. His tireless effort has allowed the department to cultivate a better learning environment for students and to develop initiatives pivotal to helping students prepare for successful careers. The award recognizes staff, students and faculty whose contributions in areas such as service, administration, leadership and outreach have had a significant positive impact in achieving the goals of the Faculty of Science. 

Javed Iqbal and Mark Van Raamsdonk received the Killam Teaching Prizes for 2011/2012. The prizes are awarded annually, from the Killam Endowment Fund, to faculty nominated by students, colleagues, and alumni in recognition of excellence in teaching.

David Jones received the 2011/12 Killiam Faculty Research Fellowship. Recipients were recognized at the Celebrate Research Awards Gala on March 8, 2012. Killam Faculty Research Fellowships are awarded to assist promising faculty members, who wish to devote full time to research and study in their field during a recognized study leave. 

Staff

Theresa Liao received the 2012 Faculty of Science Achievement Award in the staff category, for her promotion of the Physics and Astronomy Department to the public, and facilitation of an atmosphere of easy communication between physics undergraduate students and the department, as well as her guidance of the development of our new departmental website. The award recognizes staff, students and faculty whose contributions in areas such as service, administration, leadership and outreach have had a significant positive impact in achieving the goals of the Faculty of Science. 

2011

Faculty

Fei Zhou was awarded the UBC Killam Research Fellowship. This fellowship assists promising faculty members who wish to devote full time to research and study in their field during a recognized study leave. It is awarded based on special distinction of intellect with due regard for sound character and personal qualities

Ian Affleck has been chosen as the next recipient of the Lars Onsager Prize. This major prize of the American Physical Society is awarded for outstanding research in theoretical statistical physics including quantum fluids. More information.

Gordon Semenoff has been awarded an honorary degree from the University of Lethbridge at their Spring Convocation in June 2011. The Doctor of Science, honoris causa, recognises Gordon as an expert on quantum field theory. More information.

Andrea Damascelli, an associate professor and CRC Tier II in Physics and Astronomy, is a recipient of the 2011 NSERC E.W.R. Steacie Memorial Fellowship. More information. UBC Press Release.

Doug Bryman received the 2011 W. K. H. Panofsky Prize in Experimental Particle Physics. This prestigious award from the American Physical Society will be shared with Laurence Littenberg, Brookhaven National Laboratory and A.J. Stewart Smith, Princeton University. More information.

Staff

Bridget Hamilton and Bernhard Zender received the 2011 Physics & Astronomy Staff Service Awards. Bridget was awarded for her twenty-three years of dedicated service as the Departmental Receptionist; Bernhard was awarded for his outstanding service to the Engineering Physics Program as the Engineering Technician. Congratulations Bridget and Bernhard!

Jon Nakane has been named to receive a 2011 Faculty of Science Achievement Award. These awards recognize staff, students and faculty whose contributions in areas such as service, administration, leadership and outreach have had a significant positive impact in achieving the goals of the Faculty of Science. More information.

2010

Faculty

Ian Affleck was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society in its 350th anniversary year. The Fellowship of the Royal Society is composed of 1300 of the most distinguished scientists from the United Kingdom, other Commonwealth countries and the Republic of Ireland. Fellows of the Royal Society are elected for life. More information.

Ludovic Van Waerbeke was named by the Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies as a 2010 Early Career Scholar. The objective of this program is to bring outstanding UBC early-career researchers together to share ideas and research approaches. 

Mark van Raamsdonk won the 2010 Gravity Research Foundation Essay Competition. The title of Mark's winning essay was "Building Up Spacetime with Quantum Entanglement" and was published in the Journal of General Relativity and Gravitation (GRG). The top essay also earns Mark $4000. The Gravity Research Foundation was established in 1949 to encourage the study of gravity.

Andrzej Kotlicki recently received the 2009/2010 Rethink Award, given by the student-led group Common Energy, whose mission is to "bring UBC beyond climate neutral." The purpose of the Rethink Award is to recognize faculty members who are sustainability leaders for their achievements and contributions.

Chris Waltham received the 2009/2010 Faculty of Science Achievement Award (Faculty). The awards recognize staff, students and faculty whose contributions in areas such as service, administration, leadership and outreach have had significant positive impact in achieving the goals of the Faculty of Science.

Gordon Semenoff received the 200 CAP/DCMMP Brockhouse Medal for his seminal contributions to the theory of Graphene and its massless quasiparticles.

Mona Berciu was nominated for the 2010 YWCA Women of Distinction Awards. She was cited for her work in encouraging participation of women in physics. She was the faculty organizer for the annual Physics & Astronomy Welcome Orientation for Women (WOW) event in the past few years.

Joshua Folk received the 2010 Sloan Research Fellowship; fellowships are awarded to 118 outstanding US and Canadian early reserachers. The fellowship program is the oldest program of the New York-based Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Andrea Damascelli received a UBC Killam Research Prize for his work involving the understanding of the electronic properties of complex systems which differ substantially from those of conventional metals and insulators.

Staff

This year, two staff members were awarded the Physics & Astronomy Staff Service Award. Salena Li was awarded for her tireless contributions to the PHAS undergraduate program. Gar Fisher was awarded for his dedicated service to the PHAS Electronics Lab.

2009

Faculty

Bill Unruh has joined Stephen Hawking and other eminent physicists as a Distinguished Research Chair at the Perimeter Institute". The citation points to Bill's "seminal contributions to our understanding of gravity, black holes, cosmology, quantum fields in curved spaces, and the foundations of quantum mechanics, including the discovery of the Unruh effect."  Perimeter's Press Release.

Douglas Scott has been recognized by the APS as an Outstanding Referee. The Outstanding Referee program expresses appreciation for the essential work that anonymous peer reviewers do for our journals. Each year a small percentage of our 42,000 referees are to be selected and honored with the Outstanding Referee designation. Selections are made based on the number, quality, and timeliness of referee reports as collected in a database over the last 20 years. APS press release.

Steven Plotkin and Andrea Damascelli were honoured as Killam Faculty Research Junior Fellows. The Killam research awards are given annually from the Killam Endowment Fund to faculty nominated by students, colleagues and alumni in recognition of excellence in research.

Robert Raussendorf was awarded a Slfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship. Fellowships are awarded to 118 outstanding US and Canadian early researchers. The fellowship program is the oldest program of the New York-based Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Jeff Young was awarded a Faculty of Science Achievement Award for five years of tireless service as the department head.

Staff

Kim Fugate (Tkaczuk) received the 2009 Physics & Astronomy Staff Service Award for her contributions as the Director of Finance/Operations since 2001.

Shaun Woodruff was awarded a Faculty of Science Achievement Award for his Herculean efforts in the Hebb Demo room.

2008

Faculty

Chris Waltham will receive an Alumni Achievement Award for Outstanding Faculty Community Outreach Award. Noted among his Outreach achievements, is Chris's work with the Michael Crooks Physics & Astronomy Outreach Laboratory which aims to reconnect education with the natural and high-technology world around us, and the excitement and fulfillment of being able to understand and contribute to it.

The American Physical Society announced a highly selective award program to recognize scientists, including UBC's Ian Affleck who have been exceptionally helpful in assessing manuscripts for publication in the APS journals. Learn more about the Outstanding Referee program.

The 2008 CAP/DCMMP Brockhouse Medal for Outstanding Achievement in Condensed Matter and Materials Physics is awarded to Jess Brewer, University of British Columbia. The purpose of this award is to recognize and encourage outstanding experimental or theoretical contributions to condensed matter and materials physics.

UBC astronomy and astrophysics professor Jaymie Matthews was inducted Friday (2008-02-22) in Ottawa as an officer of the Order of Canada by Governor-General Michaelle Jean. Matthews is recognized internationally for his studies in stellar seismology, the use of star pulsations to probe their composition and history. He is also the principle investigator of Canada's space telescope MOST.

Scott Oser received an Alfred Sloan Research Fellowship Award. Only 22 such awards were given to physicists across North America this year, and Scott received one of only two awarded to researchers at Canadian Universities.

George Sawatzky was named a Fellow of the Royal Society. The Royal Society's citation points to George's work (both experimental and theoretical) in understanding important transition metal oxides.

Kris Sigurdson was appointed as an Early Career Scholar of the Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies (PWIAS) for the 2008-2009 academic year and as a permanent faculty associate of the PWIAS. Ten UBC researchers were selected at the Assistant Professor level representing five different Faculties.

Staff

Derek Gagnier was awarded the 2008 Physics & Astronomy Staff Service Award at the department's Christmas party on December 16, 2008 for outstanding undergraduate program support. 

2007

Faculty

Nobel laureate Carl Wieman's website Physics Education Technology Project (PhET)was honoured in the fifth annual International Science and Technology Visualization Challenge in the category of interactive media. Carl is at UBC as the director of the Carl Wieman Science Education Initiative a $12 million project to improve undergraduate science education. UBC Media Release.

Congratulations to Andrea Damascelli, who has just been awarded a Sloan Fellowship. Richly deserved, Andrea! This is the fifth Sloan Fellowship awarded to faculty members in our department over the past 3 years. Also note that one of the graduate students supervised recently by Matt Choptuik, Frans Pretorius, has also been awarded a Sloan.

Andre Marziali has been awarded the 2007 Innovation Award by the Association for Laboratory Automation. The $10,000 award was presented for A Powerful New Device and Method for Detecting and Concentrating Nucleic Acids from Complex and Dilute Samples. See the Genetic Engineering News Article.

Congratulations to George Sawatzky who received the Henry Marshall Troy Medal from the Royal Society of Canada, The Academies of Arts, Humanity & Science this past weekend. He joins a very select group of scientists. See RSC site for details.

Mark Halpern was recognized, along with his colleagues on the WMAP mission, with a prestigious NASA Group Achievement Award. Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) has been continuously making observations of the cosmic microwave background for 3 years. The interpretation of these observations support the concept of inflation, which poses that the universe expanded many trillion times its size in less than a trillionth of a second at the outset of the big bang. See NASA's WMAP site for details.

Mona Berciu was awarded a Faculty of Science Killam Prize for Excellence in Teaching.

Marina Milner-Bolotin, a Research Associate with the department, received the Faculty of Science Achievement Award (Faculty).

Vesna Sossi received the Career Investigator Awards from the Michael Smith Foundation. Vesna was awarded as a Senior Scholar in the Clinical field. Her project is "Imaging studies: Towards understanding the complications related to advanced monoaminergic disease and treatment"

Carl Hansen received the Career Investigator Awards from the Michael Smith Foundation. Carl was recognized as a Scholar in the Biomedical field. His project is titled "Microfluidic instrumentation for single-cell chemical genetics"

Staff

Stan Knotek received the Faculty of Science Achievement Award. He was the Electronics Shop Manager and Engineer for the Department of Physics & Astronomy.

Bridget Hamilton 2007 President's Service Award for Excellence. This story was covered by the UBC Reports.

Domenic Di Tomaso and Jon Nakane received the 2007 Physics & Astronomy Staff Service Awards.

Awards prior to 2007

Ian Affleck 2006 CAP Medal for Lifetime Achievement

Mona Berciu 2006 Sloan Fellowship

Walter Hardy 2005 BC Innovation Council Award

Doug Bonn 2005 Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada

Janis McKenna 2005 Killam Teaching

Andre Marziali 2005 CAP Medal 05

Fei Zhou 2005 Sloan Fellowship

Mark van Raamsdonk 2005 Sloan Fellowship

Steve Plotkin 2005 Sloan Fellowship

Robert Francis Kiefl 2005 American Physical Society Fellow

Eileen Campbell and Doug Wong 2005 Physics & Astronomy Staff Service Awards

Harold Davis, Tom Felton and Tony Walters 2004 Physics & Astronomy Staff Service Awards

Mary Ann Potts 2003 Physics & Astronomy Staff Service Award