A University of Utah emeritus professor has won the 2019 Dannie Heineman Prize for making outstanding contributions in the field of mathematical physics.
Bill Sutherland received the prestigious award jointly with Michel Gaudin, a professor at the Institute for Advanced Study and Francesco Calogero, a professor of physics at the Sapienza University of Rome.
Considered as the nation’s highest awards for physics, Sutherland won the award for contributing to the construction of widely studied Gaudin magnet and the Calogero-Sutherland, Shastry-Sutherland, and Calogero-Moser models
“As I remember, Veronica (my wife) and I were sitting outside in the sun having lunch, when my good friend Sriram Shastry called me from the Bangalore airport to tell me I had been awarded the Dannie Heineman prize,” Sutherland told AIP of his reaction to the news.
“I was then grateful that Sriram had done the work needed for me to be considered, and pleased for Sriram’s sake that he was right — I certainly never expected his application to succeed.”
A first-generation college student, Southerland received his Ph.D. from State University of New York and joined Utah’s Physics & Astronomy Department until 2004. He is also a recipient of the National Science Foundation Fellowship.