Sally Dawson is an American physicist who deals with theoretical
elementary particle physics
Particle physics or high energy physics is the study of fundamental particles and forces that constitute matter and radiation. The fundamental particles in the universe are classified in the Standard Model as fermions (matter particles) and b ...
.
Education and career
Dawson studied mathematics and physics at
Duke University
Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist James ...
with a bachelor's degree in 1977 and at
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
with a master's degree in 1978 and a doctorate in 1981 with thesis advisor
Howard Georgi
Howard Mason Georgi III (born January 6, 1947) is an American theoretical physicist and the Mallinckrodt Professor of Physics and Harvard College Professor at Harvard University. He is also Director of Undergraduate Studies in Physics. He was Co-M ...
and thesis ''Radiative Corrections to sin
2θ
W''. She was a postdoc at
Fermilab
Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab), located just outside Batavia, Illinois, near Chicago, is a United States Department of Energy national laboratory specializing in high-energy particle physics. Since 2007, Fermilab has been operat ...
(1983–1986) and
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), commonly referred to as the Berkeley Lab, is a United States Department of Energy National Labs, United States national laboratory that is owned by, and conducts scientific research on behalf of, t ...
(1981–1983). From 1986 she was at
Brookhaven National Laboratory
Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) is a United States Department of Energy national laboratory located in Upton, Long Island, and was formally established in 1947 at the site of Camp Upton, a former U.S. Army base and Japanese internment c ...
, where she became a Senior Scientist in 1994 and a group leader in 1998. From 2001 to the present, she is an adjunct professor at the
C. N. Yang Institute for Theoretical Physics __NOTOC__
The C. N. Yang Institute of Theoretical Physics (YITP) is a research center at Stony Brook University. In 1965, it was the vision of then University President J.S. Toll and Physics Department chair T.A. Pond to create an institute for the ...
at
Stony Brook University
Stony Brook University (SBU), officially the State University of New York at Stony Brook, is a public research university in Stony Brook, New York. Along with the University at Buffalo, it is one of the State University of New York system's ...
. In 2007–2008 she was on sabbatical leave at
SLAC
SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, originally named the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center,
is a United States Department of Energy National Laboratory operated by Stanford University under the programmatic direction of the U.S. Departm ...
.
Her research deals with the physics of the
Higgs boson
The Higgs boson, sometimes called the Higgs particle, is an elementary particle in the Standard Model of particle physics produced by the quantum excitation of the Higgs field,
one of the fields in particle physics theory. In the Stand ...
and possible extensions of the
Standard model
The Standard Model of particle physics is the theory describing three of the four known fundamental forces (electromagnetism, electromagnetic, weak interaction, weak and strong interactions - excluding gravity) in the universe and classifying a ...
related to the Higgs boson. She co-authored, with three collaborators, an influential handbook, first published in 1990.
In 2004 Dawson was the chair of the Division of Particles and Fields of the
American Physical Society
The American Physical Society (APS) is a not-for-profit membership organization of professionals in physics and related disciplines, comprising nearly fifty divisions, sections, and other units. Its mission is the advancement and diffusion of k ...
. She was also the chair in 2006 of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Physics Division Program Review and in 2010 of the Fermilab Program Advisory Board.
[
In 2017 she, together with three collaborators, received the ]Sakurai Prize
The J. J. Sakurai Prize for Theoretical Particle Physics, is presented by the American Physical Society at its annual April Meeting, and honors outstanding achievement in particle physics theory. The prize consists of a monetary award ($10,000 U ...
for, according to the laudation, "instrumental contributions to the theory of the properties, reactions, and signatures of the Higgs boson".
Honors and awards
*1995 — Town of Brookhaven, Woman of the Year in Science
*1995 — elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS)
*1998 — APS Centennial Speaker
*2006 — elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is an American international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific respons ...
*2015 — Humboldt Fellowship
The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (german: Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung) is a foundation established by the government of the Federal Republic of Germany and funded by the Federal Foreign Office, the Federal Ministry of Education and Resear ...
*2017 — Sakurai Prize of the APS
Selected publications
* with John F. Gunion, Howard Haber, and Gordon L. Kane
Gordon Leon Kane (born January 19, 1937) is ''Victor Weisskopf Distinguished University Professor'' at the University of Michigan and director emeritus at the Leinweber Center for Theoretical Physics (LCTP), a leading center for the advancement of ...
: The Higgs Hunter's Guide, Addison Wesley 1990, Westview Press 2000
CRC Press 2018
* as editor with Rabindra Nath Mohapatra:
References
External links
Homepage
* lectures at Mainz Institute for Theoretical Physics, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz
The Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (german: Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz) is a public research university in Mainz, Rhineland Palatinate, Germany, named after the printer Johannes Gutenberg since 1946. With approximately 32,000 stu ...
, Summer 2016
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Dawson, Sally
Particle physicists
Theoretical physicists
1955 births
Living people
American women physicists
Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science
Fellows of the American Physical Society
J. J. Sakurai Prize for Theoretical Particle Physics recipients
Duke University alumni
Harvard University alumni
Brookhaven National Laboratory staff
Stony Brook University faculty
20th-century American physicists
21st-century American physicists
21st-century American scientists
21st-century American women scientists
20th-century American women scientists
Scientists from Cleveland
American women academics