Dr. Ricky Elwell recently won the 2025 Deborah Jin Award for Outstanding Doctoral Thesis Research in Atomic, Molecular, or Optical Physics. Ricky and the other finalist presented their research at the APS DAMOP Conference on June 17, 2025 and Ricky’s thesis was selected for the award, which is for the best thesis, world-wide, in AMO physics. This is the first AMO Thesis prize for UCLA and only the second for the UC system! Ricky’s thesis, “Direct Excitation of the Thorium-229 Nuclear Isomeric Transition and Investigations of its Behavior in Solid-State Hosts,” details his experimental work that solved a nearly 50 year old challenge and paves the way for a nuclear clock with wide-ranging implications.
Ricky Elwell Wins 2025 Outstanding Thesis Award
Elwell bring’s home UCLA’s first AMO Thesis prize and only the second ever from the UC system