Illustration of a supermassive black hole with millions to billions times the mass of our sun.
JILA graduate student Tyler McMaken has been awarded an honorable mention by the Gravity Research Foundation for his essay in their annual essay competition. Each year, the Gravity Research Foundation opens a competition that awards five essays encouraging discussion and thought on gravitation. Essays must be less than 10 pages and convey science in more accessible and engaging language than in a journal publication. McMaken, a graduate student in the laboratory of JILA Fellow Andrew Hamilton, studies the gravitational and quantum effects around black holes. His essay was among a handful of others that received an honorable mention from the Gravity Research Foundation, and the essay focused on his work with black holes. Congratulations!
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.