Prizes and Awards
Each year, students in the Physics program who have excelled in academics and research are selected to receive numerous prizes and awards in recognition of their effort. Undergraduates, nominated by faculty, receive awards for their research projects and senior theses. Graduate students receive awards for outstanding research as well as for excellence in teaching.
The following is a list of Brandeis students and alumni who have received these awards.
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This endowed prize was established in 1991 by the family of the late Dr. Berko to annually recognize an outstanding student in Physics.
- Bennett Sessa (2024), PhD Candidate
- Saptorshi Ghosh (2023), PhD Candidate, "Optimal control of bulk active fluids"
- Sagar Addepalli (2023), PhD Candidate, "Searching for New Physics in the Higgs sector"
- Francesca Capocasa, PhD Candidate, "Not blinded by the light: how ATLAS will keep seeing particles during the HL-LHC Run" (2022)
- Kanaya Malakar, PhD Candidate, "Origin of polarization correlation in tissues?" (2022)
- Bibi Najma, PhD Candidate, "Multiscale investigation of the emergent behaviors in biomimetic active matter" (2022)
- Daichi Hayakawa, PhD Candidate, "Programming the self-assembly of tubules using DNA origami triangles as building blocks"(2021)
- Arnab Datta, PhD Candidate, "Energy cost of protein gradient formation in cells" (2021)
- Ian Hunter, PhD Candidate, "Experimental Equivariant Dynamics in a Network of Reaction-Diffusion Oscillators" (2020)
- Zach Schillaci, PhD Candidate, "Searching for Hints of New Physics in Four-lepton Events with the ATLAS Detector" (2020)
- Alexander Hensley, PhD Candidate, "Measuring crystal nucleation and growth of DNA-grafted colloidal particles" (2019)
- Luke Korley, PhD Candidate, "Lux-Zeplin: The Search for Dark Matter"(2019)
- Ali Aghvami, PhD Candidate, "Laser induced protein crystallization" (2018)
- Carl Merrigan, PhD Candidate, "Densely Packed, Hard Active Particles on a Lattice: Effects of Self-Propulsion, Frustration, and Rotation Rate on the Observed Phases" (2018)
- Zachary Sustiel, BS '18, "Active Nematics Under Strong Confinement" (2018)
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Micah Margolis, BS '17, "Modeling the Jet of Quasar 3C 273: Adding Faraday Effects" (2017)
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Farzaneh Mohajerani, PhD Candidate, "Polymorphic icosahedral shells assembling around many cargo molecules" (2017)
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Caleb Wagner, PhD Candidate, "Two-way diffusion equations and stationary distributions of active particles" (2017)
- Elias Putzig, PhD Candidate, "Continuum Theory of an Overdamped Active Nematic" (2016)
- Elan Shatoff, BS '16, "A Statistical Mechanics Model for Discontinuous Shear Thickening in Suspensions" (2016)
- Mahsa Siavashpouri, PhD Candidate, "Helices of Helices" (2016)
For the complete list of all Berko winners, see Berko Memorial Prize Recipients
The Falkoff Prize annually recognizes a graduate student in Physics who demonstrates excellence in teaching
- Cierra Presson (2024)
- Emily Duden (2023)
- Smriti Pradhan (2023)
- Bennett Sessa (2022)
- Sagar Addepalli (2021)
- Gurbir Singh Arora (2021)
- Francesca Capocasa (2021)
- Zachary Curtis (2021)
- Saptorshi Ghosh (2021)
- Robert Keane (2021)
- Bennett Sessa (2022)
- Olivia Leland (2021)
- Jeremy Laprade (2021)
- Yingyou Ma (2021)
- Kanaya Malakar (2021)
- Jonah Paasche-Orlow (2021)
- Steven Planitzer (2021)
- Rupam Saha (2021)
- Bennett Sessa (2021)
- Saaransh Singhal (2021)
Benjamin Strain (2021)
- Annemarie Winters (2021)
- Douglas Zenger (2021)
- Michael D’Eon (2020)
- Salam Alam (2020)
- Prajita Bhattarai (2020)
- Narges Iraji (2020)
- Jonah Paasche-Orlow (2020)
- Sarvesh Uplap (2020)
- Kevin J. Skowronski (2019)
- Daichi Hayakawa (2018)
- Linnea Pierse Metcalf (2017)
- Alexander Hensley (2016)
- Farzaneh Mohajerani (2016)
- Kelsey Shea O'Connor (2016)
Awarded to a graduating senior for excellence in Physics
- Marcus Hoskins (2024)
- Hung Kwan Fok (2023)
- Srishti Nautiyal (2023)
- Ernest Park (2022)
- Alysa M. Rogers (2022)
- Federico Berlfein (2021)
- Mark J. Murdy (2021)
- Rabeya Hussaini (2020)
- Evan Solomon (2020)
- Jesse Held (2019)
- Liana Rae Simpson (2018)
- Guillermo Narvaez Paliza (2018)
- Brendon Auréle Bullard (2017)
- Helen Marjorie Yang (2017)
- Benjamin Hechtman (2016)
- Daniel Jackson Kutner (2016)
Marcus Hoskins (2024)
William Sorger (2024)
Olivia Zarzycki (2024)