Big wins for physics and astronomy

composite pic of from left, Laurie McNeil, Art Champagne and Christian IliadisThree professors in the department of physics and astronomy have won big awards from the Southeastern Section of the American Physical Society.

Laurie McNeil has been awarded the 2019 George B. Pegram Award. The award recognizes physics educators who have demonstrated outstanding ability in undergraduate education. It has been 20 years since UNC-Chapel Hill has won this award (1999, by Kian Dy).

Art Champagne and Christian Iliadis have won the 2019 Jesse W. Beams Research Award for their “research leadership in experimental nuclear astrophysics, especially for the conception and development of their measurement program of thermonuclear reaction rates at TUNL’s Laboratory for Experimental Nuclear Astrophysics.” Only one other faculty member from UNC-Chapel Hill (Lawrence Slifkin, 1977) has won the award before.