Canadian Research Institute Honors Young Scientists

To mark its 20th anniversary, the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIAR) will present its Young Explorers Prize this month at a ceremony in Victoria, British Columbia, to the top 20 science and engineering researchers aged 40 and younger working in Canada. The winners will confer with CIAR researchers at the event to discuss the major intellectual questions and challenges of the next 20 years. Of the winners this year, 11 individuals are involved in physics or physics-related research.

The winners include Matthew Choptuik, a professor of physics and astronomy at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver; Janet A. W. Elliott, an associate professor in the chemical and materials engineering department at the University of Alberta; Peter Grütter, an associate professor of physics at McGill University in Montreal; Eric A. Hessels, a professor in the physics and astronomy department at York University in Toronto; and Victoria Kaspi, an associate professor of physics at McGill.

Other recipients of the award are Daniel Lidar , an associate professor of theoretical chemical physics at the University of Toronto; Ian Manners, a professor of chemistry at the University of Toronto; Ravi Menon, a professor of medical biophysics at the University of Western Ontario; Jerry X. Mitrovica, the J. Tuzo Wilson Professor of Geophysics at the University of Toronto; Edward “Ted” Sargent, a professor in the electrical and computer engineering department at the University of Toronto; and Andrew Weaver, a professor in the school of Earth and ocean sciences at the University of Victoria.

Each winner will receive a cash prize of Can $2000 (about $1300).