Meet the 2021 Science & Technology Award Recipients
July 25, 2022
Science & Technology Awards are presented to recognize distinguished contributions to the Laboratory's science and technology objectives. The 2021 recipients are:
Gabriele Giacomini, Instrumentation Division
Gabriele Giacomini is internationally recognized as an expert and leader in the highly specialized field of silicon sensors. As the Instrumentation Division’s principal investigator for the Silicon Sensor Group, Giacomini’s current focus has been on cutting-edge low gain avalanche detectors (LGADs). This work has been instrumental in improving the speed and accuracy of particle detection and tracking.
Giacomini’s thorough approach to device development—involving simulation, design, fabrication, and testing—is apparent in the successful development of LGADs with 10 picosecond timing. Pushing this technology further, he has successfully developed and tested a new capacitively coupled LGAD (AC-LGAD), a first in the United States. AC-LGADs combine excellent resolution in both space and time in a single device, paving the way for high resolution 4-D detectors with applications in high energy physics, nuclear physics, photon science, medical science, and space science. He is presently leading an international team to develop 4-D detectors with unprecedented timing and spatial resolution.
Cedomir Petrovic, Condensed Matter Physics & Materials Science Division
Cedomir Petrovic is recognized internationally for his prolific discovery and investigation of new quantum materials. In particular, he has grown and characterized crystals of 20 different families of layered magnets and related compounds in recent years. His collective work on quantum materials in the last decade is even broader, as described in 200 publications that have been cited over 3,000 times.
Petrovic's work, which successfully competes with top materials labs around the world, is essential to Brookhaven's reputation as a center of creative scientific excellence. His samples are the starting point for numerous studies by collaborators at the National Synchrotron Light Source II and the Center for Functional Nanomaterials, as well as colleagues in the Condensed Matter Physics & Materials Science Division. The combination of his knowledge and laboratory facilities form a crucial resource for addressing the research goals of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Basic Energy Sciences program.
Craig Woody, Physics Department
Senior Physicist Craig Woody is one of the world’s foremost experts on calorimetry—detectors that measure a subatomic particle’s energy—and other detector technologies. He has held leadership positions in a wide range of experiments in nuclear and particle physics—at Brookhaven’s Alternating Gradient Synchrotron (AGS), the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), and at Europe’s CERN laboratory. He has applied his expertise and deep knowledge to the development of medical imaging technologies, including a compact mobile brain-imaging system.
From building an early combined electromagnetic and hadronic calorimeter at CERN and detectors for the first heavy ion experiments at the AGS to studies of radiation damage to calorimeter crystals, Woody developed calorimeters to meet changing experimental needs.
Woody's contributions to RHIC include having served as leader of the PHENIX Group in Brookhaven’s Physics Department and currently as electromagnetic calorimeter project manager for the sPHENIX Project. His impressive contributions will continue to have impact at the Electron-Ion Collider (EIC), where advanced calorimetry is crucial to scientific success.
2022-20732 | INT/EXT | Newsroom
