Rob Myers, 2005 CAP/CRM Prize in Theoretical and Mathematical Physics
March 2005

Congratulations to Rob Myers, who is this year's recipient of the CAP-CRM prize for theoretical and mathematical physics. The CAP-CRM prize is jointly awarded by the Canadian Association of Physicists and the Centre de Recherches Mathématiques, and is Canada's top honour recognizing outstanding contributions to theoretical physics. The award consists of a medal and a cash prize, and is awarded at the Canadian Association of Physics convention to be held in Vancouver in early June.

Rob's award is in recognition of his stature as an outstanding theoretical physicist on the world stage, whose many ground-breaking contributions to string theory --- including the well-known ``Myers'' effect --- have played and continue to play a pivotal role in the development of string theory. Among his most recent contributions is the discovery that string theory may predict the presence of extremely long `cosmic strings' of a novel type, which can stretch across the entire visible universe and have consequences for cosmological observations. Such objects, if found, could provide the long-sought smoking gun confirmation of string theory.

The CAP-CRM prize will take its place on Rob's shelf with many other prestigious research awards, such as the CAP's Herzberg medal (1999) and his three prizes in the annual Gravity Research Foundation Prize Essay Competition. All are well-deserved, and Perimeter residents will agree that they could not have happened to a nicer guy. Well done Rob!

Eric Poisson, 2005 CAP Herzberg Medal for Outstanding Achievement by a Physicist ages 40 or less
March 2005

Eric Poisson, an affiliate member of Perimeter Institute and a Professor of Physics at the University of Guelph, received the award for his work in the physics of black holes and gravitational waves. The medal has been awarded annually since 1970 for outstanding achievement in any field of research by a physicist who, in the year of the award, is not more than 40 years of age.

As a graduate student with Werner Israel, Eric initiated the study of black hole interiors and the properties of the singularities at their core; however, his main work has focused on the study of black holes and neutron stars as sources of gravitational waves. Eric has been a pioneer in various approaches to calculating the detailed profile of gravitational radiation produced by binary systems. This theoretical research is both very important and timely as the calculation of accurate waveforms is essential for the successful operation of the new gravitational wave observatories, such as LIGO, which are just now coming online.

Cliff Burgess, Killam Research Fellowship
March 2005

The Canada Council for the Arts announced March 1st that Perimeter Associate Member Cliff Burgess has been awarded a Killam Research Fellowship. These distinguished awards are offered on a competitive basis to support researchers in humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, health sciences and engineering. The fellowship is intended to support scholars of exceptional ability engaged in research projects of broad significance and widespread interest.

The fellowship provides Cliff with a two year release from his teaching duties at McMaster so that he can more fully devote his time to research on String Cosmology, the interface between string theory and early universe cosmology. This is an exciting field of research to which Cliff has already made seminal contributions. Cosmology has entered an extraordinary era where experimental data has fixed the basic parameters describing the evolution of our universe and points toward the existence of an inflationary phase of accelerated expansion in its very earliest stages. At the same time, string theory has seen remarkable progress in the past few years to move from a stage where people questioned the compatibility of string theory with cosmological observations to one where people regularly propose detailed models and compare their predictions with the experimental data.

Congratulations to Cliff for this well-deserved fellowship!