APS Names 2007 Award Recipients

The American Physical Society (APS) recently named James P. Eisenstein, a physics and applied physics professor at the California Institute of Technology (CalTech); Steven M. Girvin, a physics and applied physics professor at Yale University; and Allan H. MacDonald, a physics professor at the University of Texas as corecipients of the 2007 Oliver E. Buckley Prize in Condensed Matter Physics for their research on correlated many-electron states in low-dimensional systems. The APS also named Ron Drever, a professor emeritus of physics at CalTech, and Rainer Weiss, a professor emeritus of physics at MIT, as corecipients of its 2007 Einstein Prize for "fundamental contributions to the development of gravitational-wave detectors based on optical interferometry, leading to the successful development of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory." Drever, a cofounder of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory being built by CalTech and MIT and funded by the National Science Foundation, invented many of the techniques now used for gravitational-wave detection, including a method for controlling laser frequency. The awards, each for $10,000, will be presented at the APS April 2007 meeting, to be held April 14-17 in Jaksonville, Fla.