Annual Postdoctoral Prize

The 2025 Jefferson Lab Postdoctoral Research Prize for outstanding postdocs has been funded by TJNAF.

The competition is run by the JLUO Board of Directors. The Prize provides up to $10,000 in support of a research project proposed by the recipient, and an invitation with travel reimbursement up to $650 to present a talk at the 2025 Annual Users Group meeting at Jefferson Lab this June. The award is based (in part) on the originality and quality of this proposed research.

The deadline for the 2025 competition is set for COB March 8, 2025 If you want to be considered, please email your complete application package to Lorelei Carlson (lorelei@jlab.org) by the deadline (see instructions below). The winner will be announced in Spring 2025. JSA employees and previous recipients are not eligible for this prize.

The rules are:

• All nominees must be within five years of graduation, and in a postdoc or equivalent position at a University or national Lab (JLab employees not eligible), at the time of nomination.
• Postdocs in both experiment and theory are eligible. Previous winners are not eligible to apply.
• Entries should include a research statement (five page limit) and CV by the nominee, along with three letters of reference. The research statement should describe past work and future plans and should include a preliminary budget with a total budget not to exceed $10K. All materials may be emailed in separately.
• The competition will be judged by the Users Organization Board of Directors.
• The basis for selecting the top candidate includes a record of accomplishments in physics, a planned high-impact Jefferson Lab physics program, proposed use of the research budget, and promise of further accomplishments in the Jefferson Lab research fields in the future.
• The Prize is a commitment of funds by Jefferson Lab to support the research plan. The funds can be used for travel, supplies, or equipment in support of the proposed research plan. The commitment of support is contingent on availability of funds for allowable expenses in the proposed research plan. The research plan need not be new or independent of the candidate's current research program, but the quality and novelty of the proposed research is considered in the evaluation process.

Past Postdoctoral Prize Award Winners

2024: Debaditya Biswas - Muon Detection at Hall C, JLab

2023: Peter Hurck - Strange physics at GlueX

2022: Arkaitz Rodas - Understanding exotic mesons

2021: Andrew Jackura - Three-Body Nuclear Phenomena from QCD

2020: Wenliang "Bill" Li - Studying the Backward-angle Physics in JLab 12 GeV and EIC

2019: Andrea Signori - Unraveling Hadronization

2018: Cristiano Fanelli - A Deep Learning Approach to Particle Identification and Alignment of the GlueX DIRC

2017: Nobuo Sato - Universal analysis of unpolarized and polarized distributions and fragmentation functions

2016: Elena Long - Probing Short-Range Interactions with a Tensor Polarized Target

2015: Raul Briceno - Exotic mesons, resonances and transition rates from quantum chromodynamics

2014: Zhihong Ye - A New Scintillating Fiber Tracker Prototype

2013: Christopher Monahan - Heavy quark physics and new physics: B and D decays on the lattice and their impact on CKM unitarity bounds

2012: Sarah Phillips - Searching for a New State of Matter: True Muonium

2011: Mark Dalton - New developments in beam properties for future Parity Violating Electron Scattering (PVES) experiments

2010: Simona Malace - Nucleon Structure at Large Bjorken x

2009: Patricia Solvignion - Future Precision Studies of Short Range Correlations

2008: Bradley Sawatzky - Quark-Gluon Correlations in the Neutron