Walter Benenson | |
---|---|
![]() | |
Born | April 27, 1936 |
Nationality | American |
Citizenship | United States |
Alma mater | Yale |
Known for | Low energy heavy ion physics |
Awards | Humboldt Prize Fellow of the American Physical Society |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Physics |
Institutions | University of Strasbourg Michigan State University |
Doctoral advisor | Henry H. Barschall |
Walter Benenson (born April 27, 1936) is a university distinguished professor emeritus in the department of physics and astronomy at Michigan State University. He retired in 2008, but continued to teach for another 10 years.
Walter Benenson obtained his Ph.D. in experimental nuclear physics from the University of Wisconsin in 1962 under the supervision of H.H. Barschall. After a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Strasbourg, he joined the faculty at Michigan State University in 1963. He was one of the core group of faculty who built the K-50 Cyclotron at Michigan State University. This project later became the National Superconducting Laboratory and eventually FRIB, the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams. [1]
Prof. Benenson has a dual appointment at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory, where he works on nuclear physics topics. He is best known for his work on nuclei far-from-stability in which he observed and did precise measurements of the mass of 45 nuclei for the first time. [2] Several of these nuclei were important for astrophysical studies. [3] He is also known for his work on sub-threshold particle production in heavy ion collisions, isobaric quartets in nuclei, [4] and measurement of temperatures in nuclear reactions [5]
Prof. Benenson taught physics and astronomy classes on the undergraduate and graduate level since 1963. He is particularly interested in the introductory physics curriculum for life science majors. For decades he has collaborated closely with his MSU colleagues Wolfgang Bauer and Gary Westfall. They obtained NSF funding to develop novel teaching and laboratory techniques, and authored multimedia physics CDs for their students at MSU's Lyman Briggs School. Based on this work they co-authored cliXX Physik, a complete physics textbook on CD-rom. In 1992, they became early adopters of the Internet for teaching and learning by developing the first version of their online homework system. In subsequent years, they were instrumental in creating the LearningOnline Network with CAPA (LON-CAPA), which is now used at more than 70 universities and colleges in the United States and around the world.
Benenson was elected Fellow of the American Physical Society in 1978. He was awarded the Alexander-von-Humboldt Foundation Distinguished Senior U.S. Scientist Award (Humboldt-Forschungspreis für Naturwissenschafler aus den USA, Humboldt Prize) in 1989. [6] He received the MSU Distinguished Faculty Award and the MSU Golden Key Research Award in 1993. In 1996 he received the Eminent Scientist Award from the Institute for Chemical and Physical Research, Japan. In 1997 he was designated as university distinguished professor at Michigan State University. [7] He was one of the only 130 MSU professors cited for major contributions to the university over its entire history. [8]
The National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory (NSCL), located on the campus of Michigan State University was a rare isotope research facility in the United States. Established in 1963, the cyclotron laboratory has been succeeded by the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams, a linear accelerator providing beam to the same detector halls.
Albert Fert is a French physicist and one of the discoverers of giant magnetoresistance which brought about a breakthrough in gigabyte hard disks. Currently, he is an emeritus professor at Paris-Saclay University in Orsay, scientific director of a joint laboratory between the Centre national de la recherche scientifique and Thales Group, and adjunct professor at Michigan State University. He was awarded the 2007 Nobel Prize in Physics together with Peter Grünberg.
Witold (Witek) Nazarewicz is a Polish-American nuclear physicist, researcher, and educator. He is a John A. Hannah Distinguished Professor in Physics and Chief Scientist at the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) and the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Michigan State University, and a Professor at the University of Warsaw, Faculty of Physics, Institute of Theoretical Physics.
Gerald Gabrielse is an American physicist. He is the Board of Trustees Professor of Physics and director of the Center for Fundamental Physics at Northwestern University, and Emeritus George Vasmer Leverett Professor of Physics at Harvard University. He is primarily known for his experiments trapping and investigating antimatter, measuring the electron g-factor, and measuring the electron electric dipole moment. He has been described as "a leader in super-precise measurements of fundamental particles and the study of anti-matter."
The Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) is a scientific user facility for nuclear science, funded by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science (DOE-SC), Michigan State University (MSU), and the State of Michigan. Michigan State University contributed an additional $212 million in various ways, including the land. MSU established and operates FRIB as a user facility for the Office of Nuclear Physics in the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science. At FRIB, scientists research the properties of rare isotopes to advance knowledge in the areas of nuclear physics, nuclear astrophysics, fundamental interactions of nuclei, and real-world applications of rare isotopes. Construction of the FRIB conventional facilities began in spring 2014 and was completed in 2017. Technical construction started in the fall of 2014 and was completed in January 2022. The total project cost was $730M with project completion in June 2022.
Padma Kant Shukla was a distinguished Professor and first International Chair of the Physics and Astronomy Department of Ruhr-University Bochum in Germany. He was also the director of the International Centre for Advanced Studies in Physical Sciences at Ruhr-University Bochum. He held a PhD in physics from Banaras Hindu University in Varanasi, India and a second doctorate in Theoretical Plasma Physics from Umeå University in Sweden.
Hendrik Schatz is a professor of Nuclear Astrophysics at Michigan State University. He earned his Diploma from the University of Karlsruhe in 1993, and his PhD from the University of Heidelberg in 1997 after completing his thesis work at the University of Notre Dame. He is one of the Principal Investigators for the Joint Institute for Nuclear Astrophysics and is a leading expert on nuclear astrophysics,. Schatz also serves the science advisory committees for the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams and GSI. Hendrik's primary field of expertise is Type I X-ray Bursts. His most notable contribution to this field is the discovery of the SnTeSb-cycle. Hendrik was featured in Science magazine November 22, 2002 for his work on experimental nuclear astrophysics. Hendrik has also contributed to Physics Today.
Wolfgang W. Bauer is a university distinguished professor in the department of physics and astronomy at Michigan State University. He is also an author, with co-author Gary Westfall, of the introductory calculus-based physics textbook "University Physics", published by McGraw-Hill in 2023.
Gary D. Westfall is an American experimental nuclear and high energy physicist and University Distinguished Professor at Michigan State University. He is also a co-author, with Wolfgang Bauer, of the introductory calculus-based physics textbook University Physics, published by McGraw-Hill in 2010.
John William Harris is an American experimental high energy nuclear physicist and D. Allan Bromley Professor of Physics at Yale University. His research interests are focused on understanding high energy density QCD and the quark–gluon plasma created in relativistic collisions of heavy ions. Dr. Harris collaborated on the original proposal to initiate a high energy heavy ion program at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland, has been actively involved in the CERN heavy ion program and was the founding spokesperson for the STAR collaboration at RHIC at Brookhaven National Laboratory in the U.S.
Piotr Piecuch is a Polish-born American physical chemist. He holds the title of university distinguished professor in the department of chemistry at Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, United States. He supervises a group, whose research focuses on theoretical and computational chemistry as well as theoretical and computational physics, particularly on the development and applications of many-body methods for accurate quantum calculations for molecular systems and atomic nuclei, including methods based on coupled cluster theory, mathematical methods of chemistry and physics, and theory of intermolecular forces. His group is also responsible for the development of the coupled-cluster computer codes incorporated in the widely used GAMESS (US) package.
Stuart Jay Freedman was an American physicist, known for his experiment testing Bell's inequality proposed to him by John Clauser at the University of California, Berkeley as well as for his contributions to nuclear and particle physics, particularly weak interaction physics. He was a graduate of Berkeley, receiving a Bachelor of Science in 1965 and his PhD in physics in 1972 under Eugene Commins. While at Berkeley, he worked with fellow graduate student Steven Chu. He was also recipient of 2007 Tom W. Bonner Prize in Nuclear Physics.
Bradley Marc Sherrill is a Distinguished Professor of Physics at Michigan State University.
Artemisia (Artemis) Spyrou is a Cypriot experimental nuclear astrophysicist and professor at Michigan State University. She is also the Associate Director for Education and Outreach at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory. She was the recipient of a NSF CAREER Award.
William H. Parker is an American professor of physics and academic administrator at the University of California, Irvine (UCI). Parker's earliest laboratory research involved seminal experiments that refined the precision of the measurements of fundamental constants. His later research focused on superconductors and other aspects of solid-state physics. In an administrative capacity at UCI, Parker has served in a variety of roles including as Dean, Department Chair, and Vice Chancellor.
Jonas Alster is an Israeli nuclear physicist.
Henry "Hank" Gabriel Blosser was an American nuclear physicist, known as a director for designing and building superconducting cyclotrons.
Joel Marshall Moss is an American experimental nuclear physicist.
Alexandra Gade is a nuclear physicist who studies the nuclear structure of heavy elements, exotic nuclei, and rare isotopes, using techniques including nuclear spectroscopy, nucleon knockouts, and Coulomb excitation. Educated in Germany, she works at Michigan State University in the US as a professor of physics in the department of physics and astronomy and as deputy scientific director of the facility for rare isotope beams.
Michael Thoennessen is a University Distinguished Professor at the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams of Michigan State University (MSU) and an elected Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS).