Annual Awards Presented by the Fundamental Research Department of NCBJ

On June 26, 2023, a Special Colloquium was held, during which awards were presented for the best research and popularization activities in 2022 at the Fundamental Research Department. The winners were Prof. Michał Bluj, a team consisting of Prof. Paweł Ziń and Dr. Maciej Pylak, dr. Michael Romano, and Prof. Jerzy Kowalski-Glikman and Dr. Miguel Figueira.

For the third time, awards were granted to recognize outstanding scientific works published by the Fundamental Research Department employees in the passed year, and for activities popularizing science. This year, the Award Committee decided to honor:

• Dr. Michał Bluj, NCBJ professor from the High Energy Physics Division, for his crucial contribution to the first measurement of the CP structure of the Youkawa taon-Higgs boson coupling.
• a team from the Theoretical Physics Division, composed of Dr. Paweł Ziń, NCBJ professor, and Dr. Maciej Pylak, for a series of works on the properties of quantum droplets - self-bound Bose-Einstein condensates.
• Dr. Michael Romano of the Astrophysics Division, for his series of works on star formation indexes of galaxies with redshifts up to z ~ 6, in particular, for the development of an original method for determining the content of ionized carbon [CII] in the interstellar medium..

The Award Committee decided to divide the award for popularization activities between:

• Dr. Miguel Figueira of the Astrophysics Division, for a series of popular articles published in the Delta magazine, focusing on astrophysics, particularly on the mechanisms of star formation.

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• Prof. Jerzy Kowalski-Glikman of the Theoretical Physics Division for his popularization of physical sciences through a series of columns published on the Pulsar portal, and for his involvement in creating the portal.

Announcing the results, Professor Stanisław Mrówczyński, the Director of the Department, highlighted the significant variety of the awarded works, including both pioneering theoretical research, observational astrophysics, as well as extremely complicated analysis of experimental data. He also mentioned the excepionaly high number of nominations for the popularization award this year. Furthermore, he also explained that the Committee faced whether it could take into account the  impressive science popularization activity but carried out in the native language of the nomined person, which is not used by any of the members of the Committee. Ultimately, the argument prevailed that such activities cannot be responsibly evaluated by the committee members.

After the announcement of the results and the award of diplomas, the laureates gave their presentations. The Colloquium was conducted in a hybrid formula.

This year, the Award Committee consisted of Prof. Stanisław Mrówczyński, Dr. Justyna Łagoda, NCBJ professor, Prof. Zygmunt Patyk, Prof. Marek Biesiada, and Dr. Marek Pawłowski. The Committee met three times, and its decisions were the result of extensive discussions.