Tuesday | April 25, 2006
UA Nuclear Physicist Wins Outstanding Junior Investigator Award
By Lori Stiles
The Department of Energy Office of Nuclear Physics has given a University of Arizona physicist a three-year, $280,000 award under its Outstanding Junior Investigator (OJI) program.
Sean Fleming, who joined the UA as an assistant professor of physics last August, won the grant for his project, "Effective Field Theories and Strong Interactions."
The DOE's Office of Nuclear Physics has awarded between three and five such young investigator grants annually since 2000. Fleming is the second UA physicist to win the award. Bira van Kolck, an associate professor in the UA physics department, won an OJI grant in 2001.
The Outstanding Junior Investigator program strengthens the overall Office of Nuclear Physics mission to develop and support the scientists, techniques and facilities that are needed for basic nuclear physics research. The office provides about 90 percent of the federal funding for nuclear physics research.
Support for scientists who study the fundamental forces and particles of nature in nuclear matter bolsters DOE goals for nuclear-related national security, energy, and environmental quality, program officials say.
Fleming, 38, is working with the theory of "Quantum ChromoDynamics," or QCD for short. A completely new idea when proposed in 1973, QCD describes how sub-atomic particles called "quarks" make up "nucleons," or the neutrons and protons that make up the atomic nucleus. While physicists now know that the nucleon is made from three quarks, they have yet to explain QCD equations of motion.
Fleming uses a mathematical tool called Effective Field Theory to try to untangle some of the mysteries of QCD, checking the validity of his results by comparing them to experimental measurements.
Fleming earned his undergraduate degree from Georgetown University (1989) and his doctorate from Northwestern University (1995). He did post graduate work at the University of Wisconson-Madison, the University of Toronto, Carnegie Mellon University and the University of California - San Diego before joining the UA physics department.
The Office of Nuclear Physics currently also funds research projects headed by Professor Jan (Johann) Rafelski, Professor Ina Sarcevic and Associate Professor Bira van Kolck in the UA physics department.
