Tanmoy Bhattacharya and Stefano Gandolfi both of the Nuclear and Particle Physics, Astrophysics and Cosmology group have been elected as fellows of the American Physical Society. APS fellows are society members nominated by colleagues, with election based on original research and publications that offer significant, innovative application of physics to science and technology. Teaching and service to the physics community are additional considerations.
“This honor reflects our researchers’ wide and enduring impact on important physics,” said Patrick Fitch, deputy Laboratory director for Science, Technology and Engineering. “Whether in nuclear and particle physics, disease and vaccine research, or machine learning, Tanmoy has been relentless in pursuing new frontiers in science. Stefano has developed methods to help study nuclear physics problems that were previously considered intractable and expand our understanding of astrophysics. We are incredibly proud of both of their achievements.”
Tanmoy Bhattacharya
Bhattacharya’s recognition stems from his “groundbreaking contributions to computational and fundamental physics, especially to lattice QCD and computational biology, including computations of the QCD equation of state at finite temperature, the neutron electric dipole moment, and the timing of the spread of the modern HIV pandemic.”
Bhattacharya is the author of more than 150 peer-reviewed publications. His current physics work is focused on using supercomputers to simulate quantum field theory to explore new physics, employing machine learning to drive physics calculations, and investigating the impact of quantum computing on quantum field theory. Over the years, he has contributed to theoretical disciplines such as nuclear and elementary particle physics; high-performance computing; fundamentals of quantum mechanics; quantum information sciences; phylogenetics of viruses; HIV, influenza and COVID epidemics; vaccine development; machine learning; uncertainty quantification; and historical linguistics.
A 1984 graduate of the Indian Institute of Technology, Bhattacharya received a doctoral degree in physics from the Tata Institute of Physics at Bombay University in 1989. He joined Los Alamos National Laboratory in 1992. Bhattacharya was named a Laboratory Fellow in 2020 for exceptional achievement in science and technology. He is currently the coordinator of the Laboratory Fellows program and the co-lead of the Nuclear and Particle Physics capability pillar at the Laboratory.
Stefano Gandolfi
Gandolfi was elected a fellow for his work “developing advanced Quantum Monte Carlo methods in nuclear physics, enabling a simultaneous understanding of nuclei and dense neutron star matter that has strengthened connections across nuclear physics and nuclear astrophysics.”
Gandolfi’s work has centered on challenging problems in nuclear physics and nuclear astrophysics, including the nuclear many-body problem, where he has developed and deployed the innovative Auxiliary Field Diffusion Monte Carlo method, which helps unlock insights into nuclei and dense neutron star matter. The method allows for understandings of nuclear properties, including how neutrinos interact in nuclei, and connections to neutron star predictions that can be compared with data drawn from the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, an experiment and observatory focused on cosmic gravitational wave research. Gandolfi is the author of more than 100 publications, including peer-reviewed research and letters, among dozens of invited talks and colloquiums.
Gandolfi earned a doctoral degree in theoretical physics from the University of Trento, Italy, in 2007. He had previously earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in physics from the University of Trento. He joined Los Alamos National Laboratory in 2009 as a postdoctoral researcher and became a staff scientist in the Nuclear Theory group in 2011. He has previously been awarded a U.S. Department of Energy Early Career Research Program award and the Young Scientist Prize from the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics, in addition to other awards.
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