Three members of the University of Chicago faculty were named as 2017 fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Fellows are elected by AAAS members for their scientifically or socially distinguished efforts to advance science and its applications.
Marcela Carena, a professor of physics and the Enrico Fermi Institute and the Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics, was named “for distinguished contributions to high-energy particle field theory, especially detection of Higgs fields, supersymmetry, electroweak baryogenesis, dark matter and extra dimensions.”
Carena’s research explores the possible connections between particle physics, supersymmetry, unification and dark matter, including how to explain the matter-antimatter asymmetry observed in the universe using the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. Head of the Theoretical Physics Department at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, she is a pioneer in exploring how the direct search for Higgs bosons at the Large Hadron Collider and the search for dark matter in deep underground experiments—such as the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment currently underway at Fermilab—could complement one another.
Don Q. Lamb, the Robert A. Millikan Distinguished Service Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics and the College, was named “for outstanding contributions to theoretical astrophysics, especially for seminal contributions to the understanding of supernovae and for leadership in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey.”
His research interests have included the properties of matter at high densities and temperatures, the evolution of white dwarfs and neutron stars, gamma-ray bursts, supernovae and most recently, experiments that use intense lasers to study the origin of the magnetic fields in the universe. He played a key role in founding the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and was the co-leader and Mission Scientist for the NASA High Energy Transient Explorer. Head of the Flash Center for Computational Science, Lamb is also affiliated with the Enrico Fermi Institute, the Energy Policy Institute of Chicago and the Harris School of Public Policy.
Panagiotis E. Souganidis, the Charles H. Swift Distinguished Service Professor of Mathematics, was named “for contributions to viscosity solutions, conservation laws, the theory of phase transitions, stochastic homogenization and stochastic partial differential equations.”
His areas of research include applied mathematics, analysis, ecology and evolution, stochastic analysis, partial differential equations and numerical analysis.
The American Association for the Advancement of Science is the world’s largest general scientific society and publisher of the journal Science. AAAS was founded in 1848, and includes 254 affiliated societies and academies of science.
The new fellows will receive their honors in February 2018 at AAAS’ annual meeting in Austin, Texas.