photo of the Niels Bohr Institute Medal of Honor
JILA and NIST Fellow Jun Ye has been awarded the Niels Bohr Institute Medal of Honor for 2021. This award was established in 2010 to mark the 125th anniversary of Niels Bohr’s birth. The medal is awarded annually to a particularly outstanding researcher who is working in international cooperation and exchange of knowledge, two qualities exemplified by Bohr himself. Ye was awarded this honor due to his seminal and creative contributions to a remarkably wide range of subjects within Atomic, Molecular and Optical physics. The award committee cited Ye’s fundamental work advancing the atomic optical lattice clock, which helps scientists to have better precision measurement and further study quantum science. Ye’s research has also shown a broad range of expertise, from the search for particles of dark matter to simulations of exotic many-body physics.
A silver Medal of Honor for 2021 will be engraved with Ye’s name and presented to him at an awards ceremony at the Niels Bohr Institute at a later date.
The Physics Frontiers Centers (PFC) program supports university-based centers and institutes where the collective efforts of a larger group of individuals can enable transformational advances in the most promising research areas. The program is designed to foster major breakthroughs at the intellectual frontiers of physics by providing needed resources such as combinations of talents, skills, disciplines, and/or specialized infrastructure, not usually available to individual investigators or small groups, in an environment in which the collective efforts of the larger group can be shown to be seminal to promoting significant progress in the science and the education of students. PFCs also include creative, substantive activities aimed at enhancing education, broadening participation of traditionally underrepresented groups, and outreach to the scientific community and general public.