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Sheldon Datz Prize
The Sheldon Datz Prize was established to support an outstanding young researcher (graduate student/post-doc) to attend ICPEAC.
Nominations are sought for the Sheldon Datz Prize which supports an outstanding young researcher (graduate student/post-doc) to attend ICPEAC. Among equally qualified candidates, the personal/institutional funding situation that would otherwise not enable participation of the applicant at ICPEAC is taken into account.
The prize, which includes support of US $1000, will be awarded during the conference dinner of the XXXIII International Conference on Photonic, Electronic and Atomic Collisions (ICPEAC 2023) to be held in Ottawa, Canada, 25 July - 1 August 2023.
Any person who fulfils the above criteria and plans to contribute to the ICPEAC 2023 conference through either an invited talk or presentation of a poster should apply to the International Scientific Secretary of ICPEAC (emma.sokell@ucd.ie) by April 11 2023.
Applications should include an application letter (including details of scientific contribution to ICPEAC 2023), curriculum vitae and a recommendation letter from the applicant's supervisor/Principal Investigator.
ICPEAC officers will determine the prize winner, the competition is open to all eligible candidates except members of the research teams of these ICPEAC officers.
Information on the origin of the Sheldon Datz prize
Sheldon Datz was a pioneer in the field of atomic and molecular collision physics and a staunch supporter of ICPEAC. "Throughout his remarkable career, he planted seeds in different places and recruited collaborators to help the seeds grow and bear fruit, opening up several new fields in atomic physics1".
His many major achievements include
- Pioneering reactive scattering experiments using crossed molecular beams
- First experimental evidence for channelling in solids
- Discovery of the first unambiguous evidence for resonant coherent excitation
- The first dielectronic recombination experiments
- First ultrarelativistic atomic collision experiments at CERN.
His work was acknowledged by the American Physical Society with the award of the Davisson-Germer Prize in 1998 and by the US Department of Energy with the Enrico Fermi prize in 2000.
As a life-long supporter of ICPEAC, he was International Chair of the meeting in Aarhus, Denmark in 1993 and uniquely Local Chair of two meetings, Gatlinburg, TN in 1981 and Santa Fe, NM in 2001.
Following his untimely death in August 2001, just after the ICPEAC meeting in Santa Fe, a fund was set up in his memory with donations from his many friends and colleagues within the ICPEAC community to support the Sheldon Datz Prize.
The award of the Sheldon Datz Prize supports the attendance of an outstanding young scientist (graduate student, post-doc). Among equally qualified candidates, the personal/institutional funding situation that would otherwise not enable participation of the applicant at ICPEAC is taken into account.
Information on the previous attributions
The first Sheldon Datz Prize was awarded at the Rosario meeting in 2005 to Michael Bromley of Darwin University, Northern Territory, Australia, the second, at the Freiburg meeting in 2007 to Vandama Sharma from a unit of Department of Space, Navrangpura, Ahmedabad, India, the third, at the Kalamazoo meeting in 2009 to Juan Martin Randazzo from the Centro Atomico de Bariloche, Argentina and the fourth, at the Belfast meeting in 2011 to Omer Sise from the Department of Physics, Science and Arts Faculty, Afyon Kocatepe University, Turkey. The 2013 prize was awarded to Diogo Almeida from the Department of Physics, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal. The 2015 award at the Toledo meeting was won by Juyanta Kumar Saha, from the Department of Spectroscopy, Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science, Jadaypur, India. The 2017 award at the Cairns meeting was won by Dermot Green, from the School of Mathematics and Physics, Queen's University Belfast, Northern Ireland. The 2019 prize was awarded at the Deuaville meeting to Vincent Lemelin from the Department of Nuclear Medicine and Radiobiology, Sherbrooke University, Canada. The 2021 prize was awarded at the ViCPEAC meeting to Madhusree Roy Chowdhury from the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai, India.