Mengkun received his Ph.D degree in the Department of Physics at Boston University in 2012. Before coming to Stony Brook he was postdoc at the Department of Physics at UC San Diego in Dmitri Basov's laboratory. His research interests include complex materials with strong electronic correlations and electron phonon coupling (superconductors, multiferroics, magnetoresistors, heavy-fermion actinide compounds) and metamaterials. He studies plasmons in graphene, polaritons in Boron Nitride, and the phase separations in vanadium dioxide thin films.

He creates artificial composites by E-beam lithography, photolithography or stencil imprint techniques. He uses these metamaterials as mediators between light and matter to perturb and study the novel optical/THz responses of complex systems.

Mengkun's laboratory will be on the S level, next to the electronmicroscope and e-beam litography facilities. See more at his group's WEB site. He is currently looking for graduate students.

Rosalba's primary area of research is theoretical high-energy astrophysics, including studies of gamma-ray bursts and of highly magnetized neutron stars, known as 'magnetars'. She is a member of several international collaborations aimed at understanding the physics of matter in extreme conditions. Her research has received numerous grants from both NASA and the National Science Foundation. She was honored for her "for her pioneering contributions to our understanding of the long and short gamma-ray bursts, including the development of advanced models to describe their properties and environments, calculations of their particle and radiative emission, and innovative treatment of the time-dependent photo-ionization in the dusty environment around the bursts."

Abhay's research has focused on exploring and understanding quantum chromodynamics (QCD), a fundamental force describing the interactions between quarks and gluons which make up hadrons such as the proton, neutron, and pion. He is also a Senior Fellow and Deputy Group Leader for Experiments at the RIKEN (Japan's Institute of Physical and Chemical Research) BNL (Brookhaven National Laboratory) Research Center, located at BNL. His research is currently supported by the US Department of Energy, Office of Nuclear Science & RIKEN. He was elected "for his sustained effort and leadership in experimental programs to understand the nucleons’ spin, employing polarized DIS experiments at CERN to high-energy polarized proton collisions at RHIC (with PHENIX detector), including early development of beam polarimetry and other essential tools; and for his leadership in the efforts toward realizing the future US electron ion collider."

See also at the SBU WEB page

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Alan Alda, founder of the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science at Stony Brook University, provided opening remarks at the event. President Stanley described the Discovery Fund as the University’s response to a nationwide call to augment public funding of basic science with philanthropic support. The Discovery Fund is one of 15 similar funds supported by universities in the Science Philanthropy Alliance, working together to increase private investment in fundamental research.

Each finalist made a a TED-talk-style presentation to a jury that included Peter Agre, Winner of the 2003 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Robert Shelton, President of Research Corporation for Science Advancement, Jim Simons, Chairman of the Simons Foundation, founder of Renaissance Technologies and former Chairman of the Mathematics Department and Esther Takeuchi, Distinguished Professor of Chemistry.

The Discovery Fund also hosted Eden and in New York city for the night before the event.

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The new precision measurements at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) in Brookhaven National Laboratory based on data collection runs by the two experiments in 2009. The analysis of the proton spin was made possible by RHIC's unique capability of colliding polarized protons. According to Abhay Deshpande "the contribution of the gluons is about the same as the contribution of the quarks, 15%, measured at CERN in the 1990's. The remainder is due to the orbital motion of gluons and quarks. While there is evidence from transverse spin effects for the orbital motion, it can be only measured if we build the electron-ion collider (EIC) that is currently in the planning stage. Once EIC measures the orbital component directly we will have a complete understanding of the composition of the nucleon spin."

Kieran Boyle (currently a Riken BNL Research Center Fellow) and Andrew Manion (currently a postdoc at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory) did the main data analysis for Phenix results during the time when they were graduate students in our Department.

Chang Kee Jung came to Stony Brook in 1990 joining the high energy experimental group. He participated in the D0 experiment, the Super-Kamiokande experiment, the K2K Experiment, the UNO Project and the Henderson DUSEL/HUSEP Project. He is one of the world's leading experts in the study of proton decay and neutrino oscillations. Currently he serves as the International Co-Spokesperson for the T2K Collaboration and Spokesperson for the T2K US Collaboration. Chang Kee is also a tireless and enthusiastic teacher, and he is especially good at explaining physics principles to a non-physicist audience, for example here. He mentored 10 Post Doctoral Associates, 17 Ph.D. students and 4 Master's students.

Alfred (Fred) Goldhaber joined the YITP and Department of Physics and Astronomy in 1967. He is being recognized for wide-ranging and important work, in the theory of high energy particle and nuclear collisions, magnetic monopoles, cosmology, precision tests of the photon's mass and neutrino physics. In each of these areas he has brought an uncommon creative insight and made contributions of lasting value. He been active as well on campus, having received, for example, an award for his contributions to student life. Over the past several years he has collaborated with Robert Crease of the Department of Philosophy in creating an interdisciplinary course that offers undergraduates in all fields the opportunity to examine the quantum revolution that has done so much to shape our world today.

The awards will be presented by Samuel L. Stanley, President of Stony Brook University at a ceremony on October 7, 2014.