Zhiwan Xu Wins 2024 Gertrude Scharff-Goldhaber Prize
Award recognizes scientist's research and 'passion' for studying the properties of quantum chromodynamics
July 22, 2024
Brookhaven Women in Science (BWIS) has announced Zhiwan Xu, a postdoctoral research assistant at the University of California at Los Angeles, as the recipient of the 2024 Gertrude Scharff-Goldhaber Prize, which consists of $4,000 and a certificate.
BWIS will host an award ceremony with Xu giving a talk about her research, titled “Search for the Chiral Magnetic Effect from RHIC Beam Energy Scan-II Data with STAR.” The event will take place at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory on Friday, July 26, 2024, at 11 a.m. ET in the building 510 large seminar room and on Zoom. The talk is sponsored by BWIS and open to the public. All employees are invited.
The Scharff-Goldhaber Prize recognizes substantial promise and accomplishments of female graduate students in physics who are enrolled in the graduate program at Stony Brook University and/or performing their thesis research at Brookhaven Lab. The award commemorates the outstanding contributions of the late nuclear physicist Gertrude Scharff-Goldhaber. In 1950, Scharff-Goldhaber became the first female Ph.D. physicist appointed to the Brookhaven Lab staff. She was also a founding member of BWIS.
About this year’s winner: ‘passion for nuclear physics’
Xu earned a bachelor’s degree in physics from Fudan University in Shanghai, China, in 2018. In June 2024, she earned her Ph.D. at the University of California, Los Angeles, where she researched quantum chromodynamics (QCD) phenomena.
QCD is the theory that describes the “strong force” interactions between subatomic particles called quarks and gluons, which make up protons and neutrons. Like gravity, electromagnetism, and the weak force, the strong force is one of the fundamental forces of nature. The strong force binds quarks together, is carried by gluons, and can exhibit many different phenomena.
This September, Xu will continue her career at DOE’s Los Alamos National Laboratory, where she will work as a postdoctoral researcher.
In 2019, Xu joined the STAR collaboration at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), a DOE Office of Science user facility for nuclear physics research at Brookhaven Lab. For the STAR experiment, Xu focused on the quark-gluon plasma, a QCD state of matter that once existed in the early universe. The heavy-ion collisions at RHIC create powerful magnetic fields, providing a unique opportunity to study various phenomena in QCD.
“My undergraduate research experiences sparked my interest in the fundamental interactions of nature and the universe,” said Xu. “The pivotal moment was my sophomore summer, when I walked into a heavy-ion group in Shanghai working on the STAR experiment. I was fascinated by how scientists tried to recreate the Big Bang in the lab. At that moment, though I didn’t fully understand what quark-gluon plasma was, I knew this was what I wanted to spend my time on studying and maybe dedicate my future life to.”
“Xu exudes passion for nuclear physics in her everyday life,” said Scharff-Goldhaber prize committee co-chair Jessica Gasparik. “We are honored to have her conducting research on the STAR collaboration, and we look forward to her many future scientific accomplishments!”
Outside the Lab, Xu’s passion spreads beyond the subatomic world into non-physics pursuits, such as painting and spending time in nature.
About this year’s supporters
In addition to Brookhaven Science Associates, the company that manages Brookhaven Lab through a partnership between Battelle and Stony Brook University, BWIS gratefully acknowledges the Lab’s Nuclear & Particle Physics Directorate, the Energy & Photon Sciences Directorate, the Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Office, Human Resources, and the Long Island Section of the American Nuclear Society for their generous donations toward this year’s prize.
BWIS also acknowledges the leadership and volunteerism of the Scharff-Goldhaber Prize committee co-chairs Gasparik, a physics associate in the Collider-Accelerator Department, and Marc-André Pleier, a physicist and the deputy group leader of the OMEGA group in the Physics Department, for overseeing the selection process of the Scharff-Goldhaber Prize. BWIS also recognizes prize committee members Björn Schenke, Mary Bishai, and Elizabeth Worcester, also all from the Lab’s Physics Department.
Their support, and this year’s donors, enable BWIS and the Laboratory to attract, develop, and retain a diverse and inclusive workforce in the pursuit of world-class science.
Brookhaven National Laboratory is supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy. The Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, visit science.energy.gov.
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2024-22007 | INT/EXT | Newsroom
