Undergraduate Awards

The Barrett Prize

The award, established by students, friends, relatives and colleagues of the late Professor Alan Barrett, honors his outstanding influence in the education of physicists and his fundamental contributions to the science and technology of astrophysics. A $1000 prize is awarded annually to a senior undergraduate or graduate in Astrophysics.

The 2016 Barrett Prize Winner – Anirudh Prabhu SB ’16
Research supervisor: David Kaiser

Past Barrett Prize Winners

Weishuang (Linda) Xu

Emily M. Levesque

Svetlin V. Tassev

Stefan W. Ballmer

C. Adam Reynolds

Edmund Mun Choong Kong

The Malcolm Cotton Brown Award

Awarded to a senior of high academic standing in physics who plans to pursue graduate study in experimental physics. Given in memory of Lt. Malcolm Cotton Brown, Royal Air Force, who was killed in service on July 23, 1918. The fund currently provides a prize of $1,000.

The 2016 Malcolm Cotton Brown Award Winner – Thanawuth (Atom) Thanathibodee SB ’16
Research supervisor: Anna Frebel

Past Malcom Cotton Brown Award Winners

Thanawuth (Atom) Thanathibodee

David Lopez Mateos

Alexander D. Wissner-Gross

Joshua M. Thompson

The Philip Morse Memorial Award

Awarded to a senior of high academic standing in physics who plans to pursue graduate study in physics. Given in memory of Philip Morse, MIT Professor of Physics, one of the renowned physicists of the 20th century, whose contributions spanned from basic physics to engineering. The fund currently provides a prize of $1,000.

The 2015 Philip Morse Memorial Award Winner – Francisco Leal Machado SB ’16
Research supervisor: Marin Soljačić

Past Philip Morse Memorial Award Winners

The Joel Matthew Orloff Award

The Joel Matthew Orloff Awards were established by Dr.

and Mrs. Daniel Orloff in memory of their son Joel, a physics major, who died in an automobile accident shortly after graduation from MIT in 1978. One thousand dollars is awarded to each of several physics majors in the following three categories:

• Scholarship: Given to the student with the highest GPA in physics courses and, if a tie, the highest overall GPA.
• Research: Given to the student with the most outstanding senior thesis.
• Service: Given to the student with the most outstanding service to the department, Institute, or community.

The 2015 Joel Matthew Orloff Award Winners

• Scholarship – Hengyun (Harry) Zhou SB ’16
  Research supervisor: Marin Soljačić
• Research – Nicholas Rivera SB ’16
  Research supervisor: Marin Soljačić
• Service
  • Nicholas Rivera SB ’16
    Research supervisor: Anna Frebel
  • Emmett Krupczak SB ’16
    Research supervisor: Lindley Winslow
  • Emilio Pace SB ’16
    Research supervisor: Anna Frebel

Past Joel Matthew Orloff Award Winners

Hengyun (Harry) Zhou

Thomas J. Wilason

Ken Van Tilburg

John Sebastian Pineda

Zachary D. Wissner-Gross

Emily M. Levesque

Patrick S. Varilly

Jeffrey C. Falkenbach

Michael J. Mortonson

Jeffrey B. Brock

Stephan B. Gromell

Raeghan M. Byrne

The Order of the Lepton Award

Awarded to a graduating senior who best exemplifies the spirit and characteristics of MIT’s Physics students. Established with gifts from alumni and friends of the Department, the Order of the Lepton embodies the community and collaboration that is one of the hallmarks of the MIT Physics Department.

The fund provides a prize of $1,000.

The 2016 Order of the Lepton Award Winner – Nicholas Rivera SB ’16

Past Order of the Lepton Award Winners

The 2016 Sigma Pi Sigma Inductees

Francisco Leal Machado

The 2016 Phi Beta Kappa Inductees

Francisco Leal Machado

Other Undergraduate Honors Awards

Graduate Awards

The Buechner Student Teaching Prize

Awarded to a graduate student for outstanding contributions to the educational program of the Department during the past academic year. The $1,000 prize was established in 1987 by the late Mrs. Christina Buechner in memory of her husband Prof. William Buechner, who served as Physics department head from 1962-67.

The 2015 Buechner Student Teaching Prize Winner

• Daniel Kolodrubetz (Theoretical Nuclear and Particle Physics – Thesis supervisor: Iain Stewart) for his work as a partner in creating and running 8.EFTx, including inspiring a redesign of the interface,overseeing the video server system, contributing brilliant ideas for problem design, responding to questions on the discussion forum and generally ensuring that things ran smoothly.

Past Buechner Student Teaching Prize Winners

The Martin Deutsch Student Award for Excellence in Experimental Physics

Awarded to a graduate student in the mid-course of research for study in any area of physics, with preference given to experimental physics. The award was created in honor of Professor Martin Deutsch’s outstanding contributions to Nuclear Physics as an educator and researcher and currently carries a prize of $1,000.

The 2015 Martin Deutsch Student Award Winners

• Benjamin Jones (Experimental Nuclear and Particle Physics – Thesis supervisor: Janet Conrad) “for his work as an outstanding experimentalist with a very strong record in every aspect of the field, including a single-author paper on phenomenology and ideas on detector development that pointed to a serious problem in the MicroBooNE detector and ultimately saved the detector from destruction.”

Past Martin Deutsch Student Award Winners

Doga Can Gulhan

Gretchen K. Campbell

Aaron E. Leanhardt

The Henry Kendall Teaching Award

Established in 2010 and named after Henry Kendall, 1990 Nobel Laureate and long-time MIT Physics faculty member, the Kendall Awards recognize graduate student teaching assistants whose performance has been significantly above what is expected of a TA. Two to four awards, each with an accompanying prize of $750, are given annually.

The Fall 2015 Henry Kendall Teaching Award Winners

• Benjamin Elder (Theoretical Nuclear Particle Physics – Thesis supervisor: Washington Taylor) “for going far beyond the call of duty in 8.251, offering weekly recitations when students asked even though this was not part of his formal responsibilities.”
• Nikhil Raghuram (Theoretical Nuclear Particle Physics – Thesis supervisor: Washington Taylor) for being generous with his time, patient with his students, and holding legendary office hours for 8.01 and 8.02.”

Past Henry Kendall Teaching Award Winners

Richard Alexander Barbieri

Alexander Pung Ji

Ilkem Ozge Ozel

Daniel Sung-Joon Park

The Andrew M. Lockett III Memorial Fund Award

Awarded to a graduate student in theoretical physics, with preference given to students from Los Alamos, NM, and New Orleans, LA. The award currently carries a prize of $1,000. The award was established by Mrs. Lucille Lockett Stone in memory of her husband, Dr. Andrew M. Lockett, who received his Ph.D. in physics from MIT in 1954.

The 2015 Andrew Lockett III Memorial Fund Award Winner

• Ian Moult (Theoretical Nuclear and Particle Physics – Thesis supervisor: Iain Stewart) for his independence, strong intuition, drive, breadth, and ingenuity, which have been demonstrated in five papers published during four years at MIT, including work on Higgs coupling measurements, on techniques to design better jet observables, and on the long-standing puzzle of systematizing the treatment of non-global logarithms.

Past Andrew M. Lockett III Memorial Fund Award Winners

Daniel Sung-Joon Park

Michael A. Levin

Andrew M. Childs

Catherine Trotter Wilson

The Sergio Vazquez Prize

Established in memory of Sergio Vazquez, a graduate student in the Center for Theoretical Physics who was killed in an automobile accident on April 1, 1990, $1,000 to be awarded annually to a graduate student with preference for a student from an underrepresented sector of the population who had to overcome racial, physical or financial barriers.

The 2015 Sergio Vazquez Prize Winner

• Marjon Moulai (Experimental Nuclear and Particle Physics – Thesis supervisor: Janet Conrad) for her work constructing the DCTPC detector, a directional fast neutron detector, which has led to a year of useful data and a successful proposal to move DCTPC to Fermilab as an official Fermilab Experiment, a very unusual accomplishment for a graduate student.

Past Sergio Vazquez Prize Winners

Mohammad Faghfoor Maghrebi

Qudsia Jabeen Ejaz

Other Graduate Honors Awards

• Kristin Beck (Atomic Physics. Thesis supervisor: Vladan Vuletic) was given a Special Award for Distinguished Service to the Physics Department for her crucial role in serving as liaison between MIT Physics and the staff of Turner Construction during planning and construction of the Nano building.