awards

JQI Fellow Mohammad Hafezi was announced as a recipient of a 2015 ONR Young Investigator award. ONR's website describes the program as being designed to promote the professional development of early-career academic scientists – called investigators, or YIPs – both as researchers and instructors. For awardees, the funding supports laboratory equipment, graduate student stipends and scholarships, and other expenses critical to ongoing and planned investigational studies.
“These recipients demonstrate the type of visionary, multidisciplinary thought that helps the U.S. Navy anticipate and adapt to a dynamic battlespace,” said Dr. Larry Schuette, ONR’s director of research. “The breadth of their research and combined value of awards underscore the significance the Navy places on ingenuity, wherever it’s harbored, and support the framework for a Naval Innovation Network built on people, ideas and information.”

Gretchen Campbell, a JQI Fellow and NIST Physicist, has been selected as a 2015 Finalist for a Service to America Medal. The highly respected honor highlights dedicated federal workers who have made significant contributions to our country. According to the award website, "The Sammies, known as the “Oscars” of government service, are a highly respected honor with a vigorous selection process. Named for the Partnership for Public Service’s late founder who was inspired by President Kennedy’s call to serve in 1963, these awards align with his vision of a dynamic and innovative federal workforce that meets the needs of the American people."
Campbell is nominated in the Call to Service category and is cited as having "Advanced the emerging field of physics known as atomtronics, paving the way for a new generation of technologies much like electronics has transformed our society today."

Three Fellows of the Joint Quantum Institute (JQI), a joint research partnership between the University of Maryland (UMD) and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), have won major awards from the American Physical Society, the nation’s largest professional organization of physicists. The scientists are Ian Spielman and Gretchen Campbell of NIST, and Christopher Monroe of UMD, each honored in a different category.

Release from NIST Tech Beat, April 15, 2014

Three National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) researchers were among those honored April 14, 2014, at a White House reception as winners of Presidential Early Career Awards. The award is the highest honor bestowed by the United States government on science and engineering professionals in the early stages of their independent research careers.

Ana Maria Rey, a former UMD graduate student who did her thesis work with Charles Clark, was named a 2013 MacArthur Foundation Fellow. Rey, a native of Colombia, is currently a JILA fellow and University of Colorado professor. Her research group focuses on ultracold atoms, optical lattices and the underlying physics of these systems, which has applications in condensed matter and quantum information science. Rey has collaborated with many JQI researchers, past and present. Selected publications from these efforts are listed below.