Two fourth-year students in the College and two graduate students have received the 23rd annual Nathan Sugarman Awards for Excellence in Undergraduate and Graduate Research.
The undergraduate recipients are Jane Huang, a fourth-year in chemistry and 2013 Goldwater Scholar; and Samantha Dixon, a fourth-year in physics and mathematics.
The graduate recipients are Vinicius Miranda, a doctoral student in astronomy and astrophysics; and Eric Oberla, a doctoral student in physics.
Huang was cited “for her in-depth analysis of λ5797, the Rosetta Stone of diffuse interstellar bands.” She was nominated by Takeshi Oka, professor emeritus of chemistry and astronomy and astrophysics; and Donald York, the Horace B. Horton Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics.
Dixon was cited “for her outstanding work in the calibration set-up for the DAMIC dark matter experiment, and in the measurement of radioactive contamination of the CCD detectors.” Dixon was nominated by Paolo Privitera, professor of astronomy and astrophysics.
Miranda was cited “for his thorough and careful work in elucidating the effect of inflationary features on cosmic microwave background anisotropy and non-Gaussianity.” Miranda was nominated by Wayne Hu, professor of astronomy and astrophysics.
Oberla was cited “for his pioneering work on high-bandwidth waveform sampling and on a new type of detector: the Optical Time-Projection Chamber.” Oberla was nominated by Henry Frisch, professor of physics.
Nathan Sugarman, SB’37, PhD’41, was a charter member of the Enrico Fermi Institute and a longtime professor in chemistry. He died in 1990.
—Prof. Jacqueline Stewart
