CERN-Asia Fellows and Associates Programme
Within the framework of the CERNAsia Fellows and Associates Programme, CERN offers three grants every year to East, South-East and South Asian* postgraduates under the age of 33, enabling them to participate in its scientific programme in the areas of experimental and theoretical physics and accelerator technologies. The appointments will be for one year, which might, exceptionally, be extended to two years.
Applications will be considered by the CERN Fellowship Selection Committee at its meeting on 25 January 2000. An application must consist of a completed application form, on which it should be written "CERN-Asia Programme"; three separate letters of reference; and a curriculum vitae that includes a list of scientific publications and any other information regarding the quality of the candidate. Applications, references and any other information must be provided in English.
Application forms can be obtained from the Recruitment Service, CERN, Personnel Division, 1211 Geneva 23, Switzerland; e-mail "Recruitment.Service@cern.ch"; fax +41 22 767 2750. Applications should reach the Recruitment Service at CERN before 15 November 1999.
The CERN-Asia Fellows and Associates Programme also offers a few short-term associateship positions to scientists under 40 who wish to spend part of the year at CERN or a Japanese laboratory and who are "on leave of absence" from their institute. Applications are accepted from scientists who are nationals of the East, South-East and South Asian* countries and from members of the CERN personnel who are nationals of a CERN member state.
*Candidates are accepted from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Brunei, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, the Laos Republic, Malaysia, the Maldives, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam.
The 11th biennial NATO Advanced Study Institutes on Techniques and Concepts of High-Energy Physics will be held on 15-26 June 2000 in St Croix, Virgin Islands. It is sponsored by the Division of Scientific Affairs of NATO, the High-Energy Physics Programme of the US Department of Energy, the Elementary Particle Physics Programme of the US National Science Foundation, Fermilab, Florida State University, ITEP in Moscow and the University of Rochester. Attendence is limited to 60 participants. There are no special application forms. Any advanced graduate student or recent postgraduate in experimental high-energy physics interested in attending should submit a letter of application containing a CV and a list of publications. In addition, a letter from a senior scientist (advisor), in support of the application, should also be sent to the address below. Although the deadline for application is 1 February 2000, it is advisable to apply as early as possible. For further information contact Ms C Jones, Department of Physics, University of Rochester, Rochester, New York 14627-0171, "http://www.pas.rochester.edu/ASIinfo.html", e-mail "connie@pas.rochester.edu".
Bottled up
The operations crews are the unsung heroes of high-energy physics, ensuring the delivery of the particle goods. A letter of appreciation from the NA48 experiment measuring direct CP violation, CERN Courier September, thanked all who participated in the provision of their beams at the SPS synchrotron. While pleased to receive thanks, the operations specialists said that "the LEP experimenters traditionally use another channel to express their gratitude (champagne), which is much appreciated in the control room".
The Japanese KEK Laboratory director-general, Hirotaka Sugawara, has received the prestigious Shiju-Ho-Sho (medal with purple ribbon) from the Emperor of Japan as one who has made an outstanding contribution to cultural activity in Japan. His achievements have been widely recognized, both in theoretical physics and in his management of KEK, where he has been director-general since 1989. Under his directorship, KEK has become one of the major world high-energy physics laboratories, with two forefront projects: the KEKB B-factory and the K2K Long Baseline Neutrino Oscillation experiment. This award is not only a personal honour but also a recognition of high-energy physics achievement by a Japanese citizen, and it will help to further particle physics research in Japan.
1999 Dirac Medal
The Dirac Medal of The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics in Trieste, Italy, is awarded this year to Giorgio Parisi of Rome I "La Sapienza". Parisi, who graduated from Rome in 1970, has made outstanding contributions in many areas of theoretical physics, including elementary particle physics, phase transitions, statistical mechanics, mathematical physics, string theory, neural networks and disordered systems. He has worked at the National Laboratories in Frascati (Italy), Rome University, and University of Rome II and I ("La Sapienza"). In addition, he has had one-year appointments at Columbia and at the Institute des Hautes Etudes Scientifiques and Ecole Normale Superieure in France. He is the author/co-author of two books and 200 scientific articles and he received the Feltrinelli Prize for Physics in 1986, the Boltzman Medal in 1992 and the Italgas Prize in 1993.
Money for string
Two string theorists - Juan Maldacena of Harvard and Eva Silverstein of SLAC - were among the 32 recipients of 1999 MacArthur Fellowships.
Guggenheim fellowships
Among those awarded prestigious Guggenheim fellowships in 1999 was Michael Riordan, physics author and assistant to the director at SLAC, Stanford. Riordan is also the SLAC correspondent of CERN Courier. He plans to use the award to research and write a book on the history of the US Superconducting Supercollider, the construction of which was abruptly terminated in 1993.
Also awarded a Guggenheim fellowship was Bruce Winstein of Chicago, who will be working at Princeton for the year on an experiment led by Suzanne Staggs to detect polarization in cosmic-microwave background radiation.
Gravity Research Foundation Awards for Essays
First prize in this year's Gravity Research Foundation Awards for Essays went to John Ellis of CERN, Nikolaos Mavromatos of Oxford and Dimitri Nanopoulos of Texas A&M for their paper "Search for quantum gravity" (e-print archive gr-qc/9905048), to be published in the journal General Relativity and Gravitation.
Picture stories
A line-up of speakers at a recent users' meeting at Brookhaven for a review, "The AGS Alternating Gradient Synchrotron: Past, Present and Future", chaired by Bill Wallenmeyer, former director of the US Department of Energy's Division of High-Energy Physics. Left to right: Mel Schwartz (Nobel 1988) "The Early Years"; Bill Wallenmeyer; Sau Lan Wu (Wisconsin) "J/psi and the Middle Years"; T D Lee (Nobel 1957) "Theory in the Future; Mike Zeller (Yale) "The Rare K-decay Era"; Bill Mozon (UC Irvine) "The Future Era"; and Shoji Nagamiya (KEK) "Heavy Ions".
Quantum choreodynamics - physics chanteuse Lynda Williams upstage at CERN.
Bernd Surrow (left) of Schwäbisch Hall, now working on the Opal experiment at CERN, receives the annual PhD thesis prize awarded by the Verein der Freunde and Förderer des DESY (Association of the Friends and Sponsors of DESY) for his thesis on proton structure measurements at the ZEUS experiment at DESY. Presenting the prize was former DESY and CERN director Erich Lohrmann, head of the association, which, by supporting social and cultural activities, aims to make DESY more than just a centre of scientific excellence.
The solar eclipse at CERN on 11 August.
Among the participants from CERN at the C N Yang retirement meeting were 1988 Nobel Prizewinner Jack Steinberger and Cecilia Jarlskog. (Cecilia chairs the Nobel Prize Committee for Physics, but not for chemistry, as wrongly indicated in the June issue. Apologies for the error.)