Awards 2024
Awards Received by Faculty, Staff and Students
September 2024
Professor Keith Bonin was awarded the Richard T. Williams Faculty Chair in Physics, effective July 1, 2024. This endowed chair position is designated to go to an excellent faculty member who is engaged in interdisciplinary scholarship, teaching, and student mentorship.
Richard Williams was the first WFU Department of Physics Speas award recipient and returned to the faculty as the Reynolds Professor of Physics. Dr. Williams passed away in 2021 and we are grateful for his having established a Chaired position and for all he did for the department.
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Professor Steve Winter was named the Gale Family Faculty Fellow last spring. The Wake Forest College Faculty Fellowships are fellowships that honor our best teacher-scholars. Steve Winter has excelled as a teacher in the classroom and as a mentor for members of the excellent research group he has built.
Professors Ajay Kandada and Steve Winter each won a CAREER Award from the National Science Foundation. These grants are awarded to junior faculty who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through research and education, and together they total over $1 million.
Both Kandada and Winter work within WFU’s Center for Functional Materials, which aims to connect a broad range of materials-focused research through research, education and outreach. Professor Kandada’s research uses ultrafast optical spectroscopy to observe light-matter interactions within materials, while Professor Winter uses theory and computation to classify and predict the behavior of quantum materials.
The following Awards were presented at our Annual Physics Department Awards Ceremony in May:
Steven Winter received the Physics Department Excellence in Teaching Award.
Arezoo Nameny received the Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award.
Haardik Pandeyl received the Outstanding Graduate Research Award
Trevor Jenkins received the Peer Mentor Award.
Josiah Brinson, Emily Foley, and Emily Wang were co-recipients of the Speas Award.
Ryan Sullivan and Dizhou Wu were co-recipients of the Outstanding Graduate Student Research Award
Josiah Brinson, Carson Cajka, Addison Crowell, and Ziyang “Skye” Zhang were co-recipients of the Major Field Tests Achievement Awards