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The 2024 NUCLEI Collaboration Meeting was held May 29-31 at LBNL.

Go here for information on the meeting. Contact Stefan Wild (wild@lbl.gov) if you have questions.

Good News (see also NUCLEI in the News, Job Postings, and the Good News Archive)

NUCLEI researcher wins DNP thesis award
Recent Washington University in St. Louis graduate Garrett King (now a postdoc at LANL) was selected to receive the American Physical Society's 2025 Dissertation Award in Nuclear Physics. The citation reads: "For significant implementation and extensive application of Quantum Monte Carlo many-body methods to the study of electroweak structure and reactions in light nuclei across a wide range of experimentally relevant kinematics." Congratulations, Garrett!
NUCLEI Researcher named as APS Fellow
Stefano Gandolfi of Los Alamos National Laboratory has been named a Fellow of the American Physical Society through the Division of Nuclear Physics. He was recognized "for developing advanced Quantum Monte Carlo methods in nuclear physics, enabling a simultaneous understanding of nuclei and dense neutron star matter that has strengthened connections across nuclear physics and nuclear astrophysics." Congratulations, Stefano!
NUCLEI Researcher recognized for contributions to nuclear theory
Dick Furnstahl of THE Ohio State University has been awarded the 2025 Herman Feshbach Prize in Theoretical Nuclear Physics from the American Physical Society. The 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." Congratulations, Dick!
NUCLEI Research highlighted in PRC as Editors' Suggestion
The Physical Review C paper: "Ab initio computations of strongly deformed nuclei near 80Zr" by NUCLEI researchers Baishan Hu, Zhonghao Sun, Gaute Hagen, and Thomas Papenbrock was selected as an Editors' Suggestion. Congratulations to the authors!
NUCLEI Research highlighted in PRB as Editors' Suggestion
The Physical Review B paper: "Message-passing neural quantum states for the homogeneous electron gas" by NUCLEI researcher Alessandro Lovato and colleagues was selected as an Editors' Suggestion. Congratulations to the authors!
NUCLEI member named Distinguished Professor at ISU
James Vary has been awarded the title of Distinguished Professor at Iowa State University. This is the highest academic honor at ISU and the first time a Nuclear Physicist has received this recognition. Congratulations, James!
NUCLEI member named SIAM Fellow
Chao Yang has been named a 2024 SIAM fellow for contributions to developing novel algorithms and software for eigenvalue problems, as well as applying algorithms and software to solve challenging scientific problems. Congratulations, Chao!
NUCLEI Research highlighted in PRC as Editor's Suggestion
The Physical Review C paper: "Effects of quasiparticle-vibration coupling on Gamow-Teller strength and β decay with the Skyrme proton-neutron finite-amplitude method" by Qunqun Liu, Jonathan Engel, and colleagues was selected as an Editor's Suggestion. Congratulations to the authors!
NUCLEI member elected to be SIAM President
NUCLEI member Carol Woodward has been elected President of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics. Carol will serve as President-Elect in 2024 before a two-year term as president in 2025-2026. Congratulations, Carol!
NUCLEI Researcher recognized for contributions to optimization
Stefan Wild of LBNL and Northwestern University has been awarded the 2023 Egon Balas Prize of the INFORMS Optimization Society. The prize was established in 2020 and is awarded annually to recognize the winner’s innovativeness and impact in the area of optimization. Congratulations, Stefan!
Article by NUCLEI researchers and collaborators highlighted on Science website
Results from the Physical Review Letters paper "Strong evidence for 9N and the limits of existence of atomic nuclei" by Witek Nazarewicz, Josh Wylie, and collaborators were highlighted as a news item entitled "Fleeting form of nitrogen stretches nuclear theory to its limits" on the Science magazine website. Congratulations, Witek and Josh!
NUCLEI Researchers interpret the observation of 28O
NUCLEI researchers Gaute Hagen, Thomas Papenbrock, and Zhonghao Sun contributed to the interpretation of the experiment reporting the first observation of 28O. This work is published in Nature. Congratulations to these scientists!
Young Researcher to join SciDAC team at ANL
Dr. Anna McCoy, currently an FRIB Theory Fellow resident at Washington University in St. Louis, will be joining the Physics Division Theory Group of Argonne National Laboratory this fall as an Assistant Physicist. She will become an integral part of the Argonne SciDAC team. Welcome, Anna!
NUCLEI Researcher receives multiple recognitions for research
Dr. Kyle Godbey, research assistant professor at FRIB has been selected for the 2023 FRIB Achievement Award for Early Career Researchers in theory. He has also been named as a recipient of an MSU Postdoctoral Excellence in Research Award (PERA). PERAs recognize outstanding productivity and success in research while at MSU. Congratulations, Kyle!
Symposium honors NUCLEI Researcher
A DOE symposium was held in April to celebrate long-time UNEDF and NUCLEI researcher Rusty Lusk's contributions to computer science, including his contributions to computational nuclear many-body physics.
NUCLEI Researcher named to FRIB position
NUCLEI researcher Kyle Godbey was hired as an Assistant Research Professor at FRIB. Congratulations, Kyle!
NUCLEI Research highlighted in PRC as Editor's Suggestion
The Physical Review C paper: "Densities and momentum distributions in A ≤ 12 nuclei from chiral effective field theory interactions" by Maria Piarulli, Saori Pastore, Bob Wiringa and colleagues was selected as an Editor's Suggestion. Congratulations to the authors!
NUCLEI Researchers win SIAM/ACM Prize
NUCLEI researchers Cody Balos and Carol Woodward of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory have been awarded the 2023 SIAM/ACM Prize in Computational Science and Engineering for their team's development of the SUNDIALS software suite. Every two years this prestigious award recognizes outstanding contributions to the development and use of mathematical and computational tools and methods for the solution of science and engineering problems. Congratulations Carol and Cody!
NUCLEI Researcher appointed Division Director
Stefan Wild was appointed Division Director of Berkeley Lab's Applied Mathematics and Computational Research Division. Congratulations Stefan!
NUCLEI Researcher member of winning R&D 100 team
Jared O'Neal of Argonne National Lab was part of a team that won an R&D 100 award for their multiphysics, multiscale simulation software Flash-X. Congratulations, Jared!
NUCLEI Researchers named AAAS Fellows
Esmond Ng of Lawrence Berkeley Lab was named a 2020 Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and James Vary of Iowa State University was named a 2021 Fellow of the AAAS. Congratulations Drs. Ng and Vary!
NUCLEI Research highlighted in PRC as Editor's Suggestion
The Physical Review C paper: "Electron scattering on A=3 nuclei from quantum Monte Carlo based approaches", by Lorenzo Andreoli, Joseph Carlson, Alessandro Lovato, Saori Pastore, Noemi Rocco, and R. B. Wiringa was selected as an Editor's Suggestion. Congratulations to the authors!
The Physical Review C paper: "Light nuclei with semilocal momentum-space regularized chiral interactions up to third order", by nuclei researchers Pieter Maris, Dick Furnstahl, James Vary, and collaborators was also selected as an Editor's Suggestion. Congratulations to the authors!
Former NUCLEI Researcher joins Intel
Recent NUCLEI graduate student Md Afibuzzaman successfully defended his Ph.D. in Computer Science at MSU and has joined Intel as a System Software Architect. Congratulations Dr. Afibuzzaman!
NUCLEI Researcher selected for outstanding publication
Dr. Matt Menickelly of Argonne National Laboratory and coauthors were awarded the INFORMS Simulation Society’s 2021 Outstanding Publication Award for their work analyzing stochastic optimization algorithms. Congratulations Dr. Menickelly!
NUCLEI Researcher named ASA Fellow
The American Statistical Association recognized Dr. Earl Lawrence of Los Alamos National Laboratory as a Fellow with the citation: "For innovative methodological development, promotion of statistical methods in high consequence challenges in science and national security, outstanding service to the statistical profession, and mentorship of the next generation of statistician." Congratulations to Dr. Lawrence!
NUCLEI researcher selected for prestigious DOE Early Career grant
Maria Piarulli, formerly a NUCLEI postdoc at Argonne National Laboratory and now an assistant professor at Washington University in St. Louis, has been selected as a recipient of an award in the 2021 Early Career Research Program from the Department of Energy Office of Science. Maria's proposal was selected by the Office of Nuclear Physics and is entitled "From Atomic Nuclei to Infinite Nucleonic Matter within Chiral Dynamics". Congratulations to Dr. Piarulli!
NUCLEI young researcher recently named to faculty position
Dr. Simin Wang, who has been a NUCLEI postdoc at Michigan State University, has accepted a tenure-track position at Fudan University in Shanghai, one of the top schools in China. Congratulations, Simin!
Research by NUCLEI scientists on short-range correlation physics highlighted
A recent paper entitled "Many-body factorization and position–momentum equivalence of nuclear short-range correlations" by Diego Lonardoni of FRIB and LANL, Bob Wiringa of ANL and collaborators was published in Nature Physics and featured in Nature News & Views and on Phys.org. Congratulations, Diego, Bob, and collaborators!
Papers of NUCLEI researchers selected as Physical Review C 50th Anniversary Milestones
NUCLEI researchers Joe Carlson, Gaute Hagen, Thomas Papenbrock, James Vary and Bob Wiringa authored papers in Physical Review C that have been selected as “milestone papers that remain central to developments in the field of nuclear physics” on the occasion of the journal’s 50th anniversary. The notification of this selection states “These papers announce major discoveries or open up new avenues of research.” Congratulations to these scientists!
NUCLEI Research highlighted in PRC as Editor's Suggestion
The Physical Review C papers: "Benchmark calculations of pure neutron matter with realistic nucleon-nucleon interactions," by M. Piarulli, I. Bombaci, D. Logoteta, A. Lovato, and R. B. Wiringa; "Chiral effective field theory calculations of weak transitions in light nuclei," by G. B. King, L. Andreoli, S. Pastore, M. Piarulli, R. Schiavilla, R. B. Wiringa, J. Carlson, and S. Gandolfi; and "Reexamining the relation between the binding energy of finite nuclei and the equation of state of infinite nuclear matter," by M. C. Atkinson, W. H. Dickhoff, M. Piarulli, A. Rios, R. B. Wiringa, were all selected as Editor's Suggestions. Congratulations to all!
Research by NUCLEI scientist on neutron star physics highlighted
Several works from Ingo Tews of Los Alamos National Laboratory and collaborators have drawn wide attention: 1) “Stringent constraints on neutron-star radii from multimessenger observations and nuclear theory” by C. Capano, I. Tews, et al. was published in Nature Astronomy and highlighted by the DOE Office of Science: “How Large Are Neutron Stars?”
2) "Multimessenger constraints on the neutron-star equation of state and the Hubble constant”, was published in Science and highlighted in Scientific American. 3) "Direct astrophysical tests of chiral effective field theory at supranuclear densities” by R. Essick, I. Tews, et al. is an Editor’s Suggestion in Physical Review C.
Congratulations, Ingo and collaborators!
NUCLEI theorists help challenge magic characterization
NUCLEI researchers Sam Novario, Gaute Hagen, Gustav Jansen, Witek Nazarewicz, and Thomas Papenbrock provided the theoretical calculations for an experiment at CERN/ISOLDE using the charge radii in potassium isotopes that implies that neutron number N=32 is not magic. The work appears in a recent Nature Physics paper and is highlighted here in phys.org. Congratulations to these scientists!
Research by NUCLEI scientist on nuclear astrophysics highlighted
Several works from Chuck Horowitz of Indiana University and collaborators have been recently highlighted: 1) "Actinide crystallization and fission reactions in cooling white dwarf stars" by Horowitz, and M.E. Caplan will appear in Physical Review Letters as an Editors' selection and featured in Physics. This work is described here as "Physicists Propose That the Universe Is Filled With Tiny, Natural Atomic Bombs". 2) An image from molecular dynamics simulations by Caplan, Horowitz and A. Cumming was selected as a Featured Image: To Heat a White Dwarf on AAS NOVA. 3) "Fast neutrino cooling of nuclear pasta in neutron stars: molecular dynamics simulations" by Lin, Caplan, Horowitz, and C. Lunardini was featured in Physics and as an Editors' suggestion in PRC. Congratulations, Chuck et al.!
NUCLEI researcher becomes FRIB Research Professor
NUCLEI scientist Diego Lonardoni has recently transitioned from being an FRIB Theory Fellow to a visiting assistant professor position ("FRIB Research Professor") at Michigan State University in collaboration with Los Alamos National Lab. Congratulations, Diego!
NUCLEI researcher elected as SIAG/CSE chair
Stefan Wild of Argonne National Laboratory has been elected to a two-year term as chair of the SIAM Activity Group in Computational Science and Engineering (SIAG/CSE). SIAG/CSE is the largest activity group of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics. Congratulations, Stefan!
NUCLEI researcher selected as 2021 FRIB-TA Theory Fellow
NUCLEI scientist Xilin Zhang from Ohio State University will become one of the two 2021 five-year theory fellows sponsored by the FRIB Theory Alliance. Xilin will be hosted at Michigan State University. Congratulations, Xilin!
NUCLEI Research highlighted as Editor's Suggestion
The Physical Review C paper "Global description of β−decay with the axially deformed Skyrme finite-amplitude method: Extension to odd-mass and odd-odd nuclei" by NUCLEI scientists Evan Ney and Jon Engel of UNC Chapel Hill, Tong Li of Michigan State University, and Nicolas Schunck of Lawrence Livermore National Lab has been highlighted as an Editor's Suggestion. Congratulations to all!
NUCLEI research highlighted by DOE
The DOE Office of Science recently published a highlight, “Computing Nuclei Properties at Lightning Speed,” about work by NUCLEI scientist Gaute Hagen of Oak Ridge National Laboratory and his collaborator Andreas Ekström of Chalmers University of Technology. It is listed as a DOE Science Highlight and on EurekaAlert! and the DOE Science News Source. This research appeared in Physical Review Letters in the article "Global Sensitivity Analysis of Bulk Properties of an Atomic Nucleus". Congratulations, Gaute!
NUCLEI researcher wins DNP thesis award
Recent Ohio State University graduate Jordan Melendez was selected to receive the American Physical Society's 2021 Dissertation Award in Nuclear Physics. The citation reads: "For the development of tools that rigorously quantify theory uncertainties in nuclear-physics observables and their application to forefront problems including infinite matter, neutrinoless double-beta decay, and experimental planning." His thesis is available here. Congratulations, Jordan!
Two NUCLEI Researchers selected for prestigious DOE Early Career grants
Alessandro Lovato and Stefan Wild, both of Argonne National Laboratory, were selected as recipients of an award in the 2020 Early Career Research Program from the Department of Energy Office of Science. Alessandro's proposal was selected by the Office of Nuclear Physics and is entitled "A Unified Picture of Long- and Short-range Dynamics of Atomic Nuclei". Stefan's proposal was selected by the Office of Advanced Scientific Computing Research and is entitled "Structure-Exploiting, Adaptive, Zeroth-Order Optimization to Improve Efficiency". Congratulations to Drs. Wild and Lovato!
NUCLEI researcher joins ORNL staff
NUCLEI postdoc Titus Morris has recently joined the R&D staff at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Congratulations, Titus!
NUCLEI Research highlighted as Editor's Suggestion
The Physical Review C papers "Benchmark calculations of pure neutron matter with realistic nucleon-nucleon interactions" by NUCLEI scientists Maria Piarulli, Alessandro Lovato, and Bob Wiringa and collaborators, "Improved many-body expansions from eigenvector continuation" by NUCLEI scientist Dean Lee of MSU and collaborators, and "Survey of nuclear pasta in the intermediate-density regime: Shapes and energies" by NUCLEI scientists Md Afibuzzaman, Metin Aktulga and collaborators are highlighted as Editor's Suggestion. Congratulations to all!
NUCLEI Researcher selected for prestigious NSF CAREER award
H. Metin Aktulga, Assistant Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at Michigan State University, has received a National Science Foundation CAREER award. The title is "CAREER: Scalable Sparse Linear Algebra for Extreme-Scale Data Analytics and Scientific Computing". The project addresses algorithmic challenges and develops a computational infrastructure to enable extreme-scale data analytics and scientific computing. Congratulations, Metin!
NUCLEI researcher leads NESAP award team
Pieter Maris (ISU) leads a team that has received a new NERSC Exascale Science Application Program (NESAP) award. The team will focus on developing and implementing improvements to Many Fermion Dynamics – nuclear (MFDn) for NERSC’s next supercomputer, Perlmutter. Team members include Chao Yang (LBNL), ISU graduate student Matthew Lockner and U. Notre Dame graduate student Patrick Fasano, with collaborators Mark Caprio (U. Notre Dame), Esmond Ng (LBNL) and James Vary (ISU). Congratulations to Pieter and his team!
NUCLEI researcher elected as SIAG/CSE program director
Stefan Wild of Argonne National Laboratory has been elected to a two-year term as program director of the SIAM Activity Group in Computational Science and Engineering (SIAG/CSE). SIAG/CSE is the largest activity group of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics. Congratulations, Stefan!
NUCLEI researchers publish book
Nicolas Schunck (LLNL) is the editor and author of a recently published book on "Energy Density Functional Theory for Atomic Nuclei", IOP Publishing (2019). The book gives an updated presentation of non-relativistic and covariant energy functionals, single- and multi-reference methods, and techniques to describe small- and large-amplitude collective motion or nuclei at high excitation energy. The book includes the contributions of several experts within the field, including NUCLEI researcher Jon Engel (UNC), and provides a comprehensive and informative exploration of EDF methods. Detailed derivations, practical approaches, examples and figures are used throughout the book to give a coherent narrative of topics that have hitherto rarely been covered together.
NUCLEI researcher announced as the FRIB theory fellow for 2019
The FRIB theory alliance conducted a search for a new FRIB theory fellow in the Fall of 2018. The search committee received many excellent applications and selected a shortlist of five. The interviews took place in the beginning of December 2018. Following the recommendation of the search committee, NUCLEI scientist Kevin Fossez was selected as the new FRIB theory fellow, and will be hosted by Argonne National Laboratory. Congratulations, Kevin!
NUCLEI Research on nuclear pasta widely highlighted
The largest ever simulation of nuclear pasta, containing over three million protons and neutrons, finds it to be the strongest material in the universe. This work by present and former NUCLEI researchers Matthew Caplan, Andre da Silva Schneider, and Chuck Horowitz, published as a Physical Review Letter, has been featured in ScienceNews, Newsweek, The Atlantic, Smithsonian.com, Space.com, and Phys.org. Congratulations to these scientists!
NUCLEI young researcher recently named to faculty position
Dr. Sarah Wesolowski, who did her PhD work at Ohio State University as part of NUCLEI, has accepted a tenure track faculty position at Salisbury University. She continues to collaborate on NUCLEI research applying Bayesian statistics to effective field theory. Congratulations!
NUCLEI Research highlighted as Editor's Suggestion
The Physical Review C paper "Critical examination of constraints on the equation of state of dense matter obtained from GW170817" by NUCLEI researcher Ingo Tews of Los Alamos National Laboratory and collaborators is highlighted as an Editor's Suggestion. Congratulations!
NUCLEI Researchers Scott Bogner and Gaute Hagen named APS Fellows
The American Physical Society recognized Dr. Bogner of Michigan State University as a Fellow with the citation: "For the development and application of renormalization group methods to low-energy nuclear physics, including the similarity renormalization group and the in-medium similarity renormalization group as a new ab initio method." The APS recognized Dr. Hagen of Oak Ridge National Laboratory as a Fellow with the citation: "For contributions to the development of coupled-cluster methods in nuclear physics and his theoretical predictions for the structure of rare isotopes." Both were nominated by the Division of Nuclear Physics. Congratulations to these scientists!
NUCLEI Research highlighted as Editor's Suggestion
The Physical Review C paper "Bayesian approach to model-based extrapolation of nuclear observables" by NUCLEI researchers Yuchen Cao and Witek Nazarewicz of Michigan State University, in collaboration with MSU statisticians Léo Neufcourt and Frederi Viens, is highlighted as an Editor's Suggestion. Congratulations!
NUCLEI Researcher selected for prestigious DOE Early Career grant
Stefano Gandolfi of Los Alamos National Laboratory was selected by the Office of Nuclear Physics as a recipient of an award in the 2018 Early Career Research Program from the Department of Energy Office of Science. The title of his proposal is "Weak interactions in nuclei and nuclear matter". Congratulations to Dr. Gandolfi!
Nature Physics Perspective by NUCLEI researcher widely highlighted
The Nature Physics Perspective on The limits of nuclear mass and charge by NUCLEI researcher Witek Nazarewicz  was highlighted by  MSUToday and many international news outlets. Congratulations!
Paper involving NUCLEI researchers is Physics Focus and Editor's Suggestion
The Physical Review Letters paper "Probing Sizes and Shapes of Nobelium Isotopes by Laser Spectroscopy" involving NUCLEI researchers Bastian Schuetrumpf and Witek Nazarewicz is highlighted in an APS Physics Focus article. Congratulations!
Quantum computing paper by NUCLEI researchers highlighted in APS Physics Viewpoint
The Physical Review Letters paper "Cloud Quantum Computing of an Atomic Nucleus" by NUCLEI researchers Gaute Hagen, Gustav Jansen, Titus Morris, and Thomas Papenbrock and collaborators at ORNL is highlighted in an APS Physics Viewpoint article by Stefano Gandolfi, also a NUCLEI researcher. Congratulations to these scientists!
Deep learning paper by NUCLEI researchers receives a "Best Paper" award
The paper "Deep Learning: A Tool for Computational Nuclear Physics" by computer scientist Gianina Negoita (formerly a SciDAC-2/UNEDF grad student) and NUCLEI researchers James Vary, Pieter Maris, Andrey Shirokov, Esmond Ng, and Chao Yang (plus several other collaborators) has received a "Best Paper" award at the conference "Computation Tools 2018" in Barcelona, Spain. Congratulations to these scientists!
Paper on neutron-deficient tin isotopes by NUCLEI researchers selected as Editors Suggestion
The Physical Review Letters paper Structure of the lightest tin isotopes" by NUCLEI researchers T. D. Morris, G. Hagen, G. R. Jansen, and T. Papenbrock, and collaborators was chosen as an Editors’ Suggestion. Congratulations to these scientists!
NUCLEI young researchers recently named to faculty positions
Congratulations to these scientists on their new positions!
  • Dr. Saori Pastore of Los Alamos National Laboratory has joined the faculty at Washington University in St. Louis as an Assistant Professor.
  • Dr. Maria Piarulli of Argonne National Laboratory has joined the faculty at Washington University in St. Louis as an Assistant Professor.
  • Dr. Rodrigo Navarro Perez, formerly a NUCLEI postdoc at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and now at Ohio University, has joined the faculty at San Diego State University as an Assistant Professor.
Articles in PRL by NUCLEI researchers selected for Physics and as Editors' Suggestions
NUCLEI researchers Farrukh Fattoyev and Chuck Horowitz and their collaborators had two recent Physical Review Letters articles highlighted. "Neutron Skins and Neutron Stars in the Multimessenger Era" was chosen as an Editor's Suggestion and featured as a Physics Synopsis. "Rapid Neutrino Cooling in the Neutron Star MXB 1659-29" was also chosen as an Editor's Suggestion and featured as a Physics Viewpoint. Congratulations to these scientists!
NUCLEI researcher Pieter Maris elected to NUGEX
The NERSC Users Group Executive Committee is the voice of the user community to NERSC and DOE. NUGEX is consulted on many NERSC policy issues and members participate in their office's NERSC Requirements Reviews of High Performance Computing and Storage. Congratulations to Pieter Maris of Iowa State University on his election to a three-year term as an At Large representative.
Paper by NUCLEI researchers on heavy element oganesson is getting wide attention
The article "Electron and Nucleon Localization Functions of Oganesson: Approaching the Thomas-Fermi Limit" by NUCLEI scientists Bastian Schuetrumpf and Witek Nazarewicz of Michigan State University and collaborators Paul Jerabek and Peter Schwerdtfeger of Massey University was highlighted as the cover story in a recent edition of Physical Review Letters, and was selected for an Editors’ Suggestion and a Viewpoint in Physics. Widespread media attention has included Nature, Physics Today, Chemistry World and Phys.org. Congratulations to these scientists!
Article by NUCLEI researchers selected as a Focus article by Physics
The paper "Cluster formation in precompound nuclei in the time-dependent framework" by Bastian Schuetrumpf and Witek Nazarewicz of Michigan State University was chosen as an APS Physics Focus article entitled "Focus: Video—Nuclear Fusion in Hi-Def". Congratulations to these scientists!
NUCLEI Researcher receives 2018 APS Dissertation Award in Nuclear Physics
Dr. Matthew Caplan of Indiana University (now a Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics Postdoctoral Fellow at McGill University) was selected for the 2018 Dissertation Award in Nuclear Physics from the American Physical Society. He was supervised by NUCLEI researcher Prof. Chuck Horowitz and was partially supported in his work by NUCLEI. The citation reads “For a pioneering study of dense nuclear matter in compact stars that makes surprising connections across disciplines including nuclear physics and biophysics.” Congratulations to Dr. Caplan!
NUCLEI Researcher selected for DOE Early Career grant
Prof. Heiko Hergert of Michigan State University was selected by the Office of Nuclear Physics as one of 59 recipients (out of about 700 proposals) of an award in the 2017 Early Career Research Program from the Department of Energy Office of Science. The title of his proposal is "Advanced Ab Initio Methods for Nuclear Structure". Congratulations to Dr. Hergert!
NUCLEI Project Co-Director awarded Flerov Prize
Witek Nazarewicz, John A. Hannah Distinguished Professor of Physics at Michigan State University and FRIB Chief Scientist, has been awarded the G.N. Flerov Prize from the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research for outstanding research in nuclear physics. He was cited for his theoretical studies of the atomic and nuclear properties of the heaviest elements. Congratulations to Dr. Nazarewicz!
Articles by NUCLEI researchers and collaborators selected as Editors' Suggestions
The paper "Nuclear Physics Around the Unitarity Limit" by Sebastian König and collaborators was chosen as a Physical Review Letters Editors' Suggestion. Dr. König, who recently became a Herzberg Fellow at TU Darmstadt, led this work as a NUCLEI postdoc at Ohio State University (OSU). Research by NUCLEI scientists Jordan Melendez, Sarah Wesolowski, and Dick Furnstahl at OSU entitled Bayesian truncation errors in chiral effective field theory: Nucleon-nucleon observables" was chosen as a Physical Review C Editors' Suggestion. Congratulations to these scientists!
NUCLEI researcher promoted at ISU
Pieter Maris has been promoted by Iowa State University to Research Full Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, effective July 1, 2017. Congratulations to Dr. Maris!
Article by NUCLEI researcher selected for journal highlights
The article "Challenges in nuclear structure theory" by Witek Nazarewicz was chosen by the Journal of Physics G: Nuclear and Particle Physics for inclusion in their "Highlights of 2016", which showcases the best work published in each section of the journal. Congratulations to Dr. Nazarewicz!
NUCLEI researcher leads DOE topical collaboration in nuclear theory
Nicolas Schunck of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is the principal investigator of the FIRE (Fission In R-process Elements) topical collaboration in nuclear theory. The collaboration involves scientists at the University of Notre Dame, North Carolina State University, Los Alamos National Laboratory and Brookhaven National Laboratory. The five-year award is jointly funded by the NNSA and DOE Office of Science and will explore the role that fission recycling plays in nucleosynthesis. The collaboration will use state-of-the art density functional theory (DFT), nuclear reaction theory and high-performance computing to compute atomic masses, fission fragment distributions, fission, beta decay and neutron capture rates and assess their impact on abundance patterns for each potential astrophysical site of the r-process. Comparisons of predictions with solar data as well as spectroscopic data from halo stars will determine the nuclei whose fission properties are most critical for the r-process abundance pattern. This project will make an essential contribution to understanding the origin of elements in the cosmos.
NUCLEI Project PI awarded 2017 Feshbach Prize
Joe Carlson of Los Alamos National Laboratory has been awarded the 2017 American Physical Society Herman Feshbach Prize in Theoretical Nuclear Physics. He was cited for his pioneering work on Quantum Monte Carlo techniques to solve key problems in nuclear structure physics, cold atom physics, and dense matter theory of relevance to neutron stars. Congratulations to Dr. Carlson!
NUCLEI researcher awarded Young Scientist Prize from IUPAP
Andreas Ekström, former NUCLEI member as a postdoc at the University of Tennessee and ORNL and now a NUCLEI Foreign Collaborator as Assistant Professor at Chalmers University of Technology, was recently awarded the prestigious IUPAP Young Scientist Prize in nuclear physics at the International Nuclear Physics Conference in Adelaide, Australia. The citation reads: "For his groundbreaking contributions in the optimization of nuclear interactions from chiral effective field theory using advanced physical and mathematical tools in quantifying the theoretical uncertainties. This has allowed accurate ab initio many-body calculations in the areas of nuclear structure and reactions, reproducing for the first time both nuclear binding energies and radii in higher precision and giving realistic saturation properties of nuclear matter." Congratulations to Dr. Ekström!
Recognitions for NUCLEI young scientists
Congratulations to these young researchers!
  • Maria Piarulli has won the Old Dominion University College of Sciences "Lee Entsminger Outstanding Ph.D. Dissertation Award" for 2015-2016.
  • Alumnus Saori Pastore is receiving the Few-Body System Award for Young Scientists at this year's 23rd European Conference on Few-Body Problems in Physics
NUCLEI researcher Bob Wiringa named Argonne Distinguished Fellow
The Argonne Distinguished Fellows "are recognized internationally for their work and show the type of leadership that impacts Argonne’s future and its mission." It is the highest scientific/engineering rank at Argonne National Laboratory, a distinction held by only a few percent of the research staff, and comparable to an endowed chair at a top-ranked university. Congratulations to Dr. Wiringa!
Team led by NUCLEI researcher wins HPC Innovation Excellence Award
The ACCOLADES scalable workflow management tool developed at Argonne National Laboratory by a team led by Shashi Aithal and NUCLEI scientist Stefan Wild is a recipient of the HPC Innovation Excellence Award. See more details on the announcement and the project. Congratulations!
NUCLEI researchers have key role in new DOE topical theory collaboration
The topical collaboration "Nuclear Theory for Double-Beta Decay and Fundamental Symmetries" is one of three recently chosen for five-yea awards from the Department of Energy. Nine of the fifteen senior investigators --- Scott Bogner, Joseph Carlson, Jonathan Engel (PI), Stefano Gandolfi, Gaute Hagen, Mihai Horoi, Witold Nazarewicz, Thomas Papenbrock, and James Vary --- are members of NUCLEI. The collaboration will focus primarily on the accurate computation, with quantified uncertainty, of the nuclear matrix elements that govern the rate of neutrinoless double-beta decay. Several large-scale experiments to measure or set limits on the rate are underway or planned. The collaboration will also work to better understand the nuclear physics underlying atomic electric dipole moments and the interaction of dark matter with ordinary matter. For an announcement of the recent awards, see here.
Papers by NUCLEI researchers selected as "Editor's Suggestions" in PRC
These recent papers describing NUCLEI physics have been highlighted by the Editors of Physical Review C: Congratulations to these scientists!

Announcements (see also News Archive)

Upcoming workshops, conferences, and other meetings
Please see the Meetings page.
Faculty and Permanent Research Positions in NUCLEI-related science
See Job Postings for details. An FRIB Theory Alliance bridge position at North Carolina State University, a Nuclear Theory Assistant Professor position as part of a cluster hire at Iowa State University, and a faculty position in theoretical physics at Yale University have been announced.
See Job Postings for details.
TALENT course lecture videos available
The TALENT course Density Functional Theory and Self-Consistent Methods was held at the University of York in York, UK, from July 17 to August 6, 2016. The principal lecturers were Jacek Dobaczewski, Andrea Idini, Alessandro Pastore, and Nicolas Schunck. Videos of the lectures and written materials are freely available.