In Brief

Jennifer M. Schwarz and Xiangjun Xing joined the physics department at Syracuse University, each as an assistant professor of physics, in August. Schwarz, who earned a PhD from Harvard University in 2002, was a research associate at the University of Pennsylvania and UCLA from 2003 to 2005 and at Syracuse University from 2001 to 2003. Xing, who earned a PhD in 2003 from the University of Colorado in Boulder, was a research associate at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign from 2003 to 2005 and at the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics from 2002 to 2003.

Massimo Inguscio, internationally renowned for his recent research on the physics of ultracold atoms, has won the 2005 Science Prize from the Simone and Cino del Duca Foundation of the French Academy of Science. Inguscio, a professor of physics at the University of Florence and director of atomic physics research at the European Laboratory for Nonlinear Spectroscopy in Florence, was awarded the prize “for his research in the area of degenerate fermion gases.” He accepted the honor during a 15 June ceremony in Paris and received C250 000 (about $310 000) as part of the award.

A former Brookhaven National Laboratory chemist recognized for his expertise in crystallography and structural and synthetic chemistry has been named director of the University of South Carolina’s NanoCenter. Tom Vogt told Physics Today that in his new post he leads a team of 40 scientists involved in nanoscience research and initiates and oversees the conceptual design and construction of a new nanoscience building at USC, where he is also a professor in the chemistry and biochemistry department and an adjunct professor of philosophy. At the time of his departure from Brookhaven in August, Vogt—who had joined the facility in 1992—was the head of the materials synthesis and characterization group in the lab’s physics department, cluster leader of materials synthesis in the Center for Functional Nanomaterials, and technical coordinator for scientific equipment for the center.

Daniel L. Stein has joined New York University as a Provost Faculty Fellow with joint appointments in the physics and mathematics departments. Stein comes to NYU from the University of Arizona, Tucson, where he was a physics professor from 1987 to 2005—heading the physics department from 1995 to 2005—and a member of UA’s applied mathematics program, serving on its steering committee for two years. Stein began his new position at NYU on 1 September.

Paul Sommers joined the Pennsylvania State University in July as a professor of physics. Sommers comes from the University of Utah in Salt Lake City as a research professor of physics, a position he held for 12 years. In addition to his teaching and research duties, he will continue to work on the Pierre Auger Cosmic Ray Observatory, which will have detectors in Colorado and in Mendoza, Argentina.

Cara Rivero has been selected as this year’s winner of the American Ceramic Society’s Norbert J. Kreidl Award for Young Scholars, which recognizes excellence in research. This is the highest award that the society gives to students. Rivero is a graduate research assistant in the glass processing and characterization lab at the College of Optics and Photonics at the University of Central Florida.