Prize Recipient


Recipient Picture

Mikhail Shifman
University of Minnesota

Citation:

"For contributions to theoretical high energy physics, in particular for the understanding of strong interactions and dynamics of supersymmetric gauge theories, and for communicating the excitement of science to the public."

Background:

I was born in 1949 in Riga, Latvia, then part of the Soviet Union. My father was a civil engineer; he took part in reconstruction of roads and bridges which were largely destroyed in the western part of the Soviet Union during WWII. Shortly after, my family moved to Ukraine and then to Moscow. In 1966 I became a student at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology in Dolgoprudny. My interest in theoretical particle physics developed around 1969. I did my Masters diploma work and then my PhD (1976) at the Institute of the Theoretical and Experimental Physics (ITEP) in Moscow, where I stayed as a member of the Theory Department till 1989. I spent the 1989-90 academic year at Bern University in Switzerland, and then moved to my present position as Professor of Physics and member of the William I. Fine Theoretical Physics Institute at the University of Minnesota, where I hold the Ida Cohen Fine Chair in(Theoretical Physics. In 1997 I was elected as a Fellow of the American Physical Society. I have had the honor of receiving the 1993 Senior US Scientist Humboldt Research Award from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (Germany) and the 1999 Sakurai Prize for Theoretical Particle Physics from APS. I am the author of several books, over 280 scientific publications, and a number of popular articles and articles on the history of high-energy physics.


Selection Committee:

Margaret Murnane (Chair), Allen Goldman (12/05), H. Jeff Kimble ('04 winner)(12/05), John Bagger (v. chair)(12/06)