Welcome to our Faculty Awards page. Here, you will find a selection of accolades and honors that showcase the dedication, innovation, and excellence of our educators and researchers. These highlighted awards reflect their individual brilliance and underscore the Division of Physical Science’s commitment to fostering a vibrant academic community. For a more detailed list of department-specific awards, please visit the respective department websites.
Nobel Prize
Andrea Ghez
Physics and Astronomy
2020 Nobel Prize in Physics
Professor Ghez was UCLA professor was honored for her pioneering research on the Milky Way’s supermassive black hole. Ghez and her team have made direct measurements of how gravity works near a supermassive black hole — research she describes as “extreme astrophysics.” READ MORE
2024
Zvi Bern
Physics and Astronomy
National Academy of Sciences
Professor Bern is the director of the Mani L. Bhaumik Institute for Theoretical Physics. A UCLA faculty member since 1992, Bern is an internationally renowned researcher and a fellow of the American Physical Society.
Edward Young
Earth, Planetary, and Space Sciences
J. Lawrence Smith Medal
The 2024 J. Lawrence Smith Medal is awarded by the National Academy of Sciences every 3 years for recent original and meritorious research on meteoric bodies. Professor Young’s investigations have elucidated our understanding of oxygen isotopes in meteorites, evaporation and condensation in meteoritic materials, the origin of short-lived radionuclides in the solar nebula, and models for aqueous alteration processes in meteorite parent bodies.
2023
David Saltzberg
Physics and Astronomy
American Physical Society Instrumentation Award
Professor Saltzberg won the prestigious Instrumentation Award from the American Physical Society Division of Particles and Fields for his decades of work with long-time collaborator Professor Peter Gorham from the University of Hawai’i proving the existence of the Askaryan effect and related processes. READ MORE
Alvine Kamaha
Physics and Astronomy
Edward A. Bouchet Award
Alvine Kamaha, assistant professor of physics at UCLA and UCLA’s inaugural Keith and Cecilia Terasaki Endowed Chair in Physical Sciences, won the 2024 Edward A. Bouchet Award from the American Physical Society (APS) for her leadership and key accomplishments in the experimental search for dark matter in the universe and the advancement of underrepresented minority scientists. READ MORE
Park Williams
Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences
MacArthur Fellowship
An acclaimed hydroclimatologist, Williams is a professor in UCLA’s geography department and holds a joint appointment in atmospheric and oceanic sciences. He is part of a multi-institutional team developing a wildfire and ecosystem model for the Western U.S., a project that will allow researchers to run simulations to predict how climate change is expected to continue impacting fire and vegetation ecosystems. READ MORE