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 sin²θ_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 ...

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 ** ** ** ** ** {{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