Margaret Murnane was honored by Ireland’s President Michael D Higgins at the Aras an Uachtarain.
JILA Fellow Margaret Murnane was one of 10 recipients of the Presidential Distinguished Service Award for the Irish Abroad.
Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney announced the names of the award winners on the 28th of November 2018. These awards, established in 2012, are meant to recognize the contributions of members of the Irish diaspora.
Each of the awards is for contributions to a specific category. Murnane received the science, technology and innovation award for her work as “one of the leading optical physicists of her generation,” according The Irish Times.
The awards were presented on Thursday, November 29th, 2018, by Ireland’s President Michael D. Higgens.
Other recipients of the award include Novelist Edna O’Brien and Irish-American Pulitzer Prize-winning author William Kennedy.
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.