UPTON, NY — Kyle Cranmer, a former Goldhaber Distinguished Fellow and a current guest scientist at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory was among 58 researchers honored in Washington, DC, today as recipients of the prestigious Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers.
Nine federal departments and agencies support the 58 honorees, and DOE’s Office of Science and its National Nuclear Security Administration provided funding for the work of eight of the award recipients. The Presidential Award is the highest honor bestowed by the U.S. government on outstanding scientists and engineers who are beginning their independent careers. Each Presidential Award winner received a citation, a plaque, and a commitment for continued funding of their work from their agency for five years.
“These awards reflect our belief that the representatives of the new generation of scientists and engineers honored today are meeting demanding scientific and technical challenges with superior leadership, knowledge and insight,” Secretary of Energy Samuel W. Bodman said. “I’m pleased to recognize the extraordinary scientific and technical achievements represented by the awardees’ contributions.”
Cranmer and three other DOE national laboratory scientists recognized today also were honored with DOE’s Office of Science Early Career Scientist and Engineer Award.
Cranmer, who is currently an assistant professor of physics at New York University, was recognized for his work on the ATLAS experiment, part of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, the world’s largest particle physics center, located near Geneva, Switzerland. Cranmer’s work involves preparation for the search for the Higgs boson, the last unobserved particle predicted by the standard model of particle physics. The Higgs boson is believed to be the origin of mass for fundamental particles. He first started searching for the Higgs boson as part of the ALEPH Experiment at the Large Electron and Positron Collider at CERN, and will continue his experimental studies at the ATLAS detector when the LHC, currently under construction, is completed in 2008.
Cranmer specializes in advanced data analysis and statistical techniques, which he believes are key to a robust discovery of new physics at the LHC. “I am honored to receive the recognition and to have been nominated by BNL. This award will enable me to further develop my research during a very exciting time for particle physics,” he said. “My work has focused on the tools and strategies for data analysis. I’m also active in developing the trigger, which is the system that selects which collisions to save in the data. The trigger is a crucial component for the successful operation of the ATLAS experiment.”
Kyle Cranmer attended the charter class of the Arkansas School of Mathematics, Sciences & the Arts in 1993. He earned a B.A. in physics and mathematics in 1999 from Rice University, and an M.A. and Ph.D., both in physics, from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, in 2002 and 2005, respectively. In 1999, he won the Heaps Prize for Most Outstanding Undergraduate Physics Thesis, and, in 2000, he won the Van Vleck Prize from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He was the recipient of a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship from 2000-2003, was a Massachusetts Institute of Technology Visiting Graduate Student Fellow in 2004, and joined Brookhaven as a Goldhaber Distiguished Fellow in 2005. In August 2007, took a faculty position at New York University, while keeping his ties to Brookhaven as a guest scientist.
One of ten national laboratories overseen and primarily funded by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Brookhaven National Laboratory conducts research in the physical, biomedical, and environmental sciences, as well as in energy technologies and national security. Brookhaven Lab also builds and operates major scientific facilities available to university, industry and government researchers. Brookhaven is operated and managed for DOE’s Office of Science by Brookhaven Science Associates, a limited-liability company founded by the Research Foundation of State University of New York on behalf of Stony Brook University, the largest academic user of Laboratory facilities, and Battelle, a nonprofit, applied science and technology organization. Visit Brookhaven Lab’s electronic newsroom for links, news archives, graphics, and more: http://www.bnl.gov/newsroom
NOTE TO LOCAL EDITORS: Kyle Cranmer, who recently moved to Manhattan, is a former resident of Patchogue, NY.