NEWPORT NEWS, VA. - The chief scientist for the Department of Energy's Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility today was named as one of 15 world-leading scholars to receive an inaugural Australian Laureate Fellowship.
Anthony Thomas, an Australian nuclear physicist who joined Jefferson Lab in 2004, will receive about $2.13 million to conduct research, according to Sen. Kim Carr, Australia's minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research. The 15 fellowships will support the work of up to 60 postgraduate and postdoctoral researchers, who will work with the laureates.
"I created the Australian Laureate Fellowships to give researchers at the peak of their careers the opportunity to develop and mentor strong teams of emerging talent," Carr said in a news release. "Through the Australian Laureate Fellowships the Australian Government is creating viable career paths for Australian researchers to build the necessary skills and capacity for a strong national innovation system.
"The 15 Australian Laureate Fellows I have announced are from both national and international institutions and were selected from a highly competitive field of 148 researchers," Carr continued. "I congratulate the successful fellows. Their high-quality research and exemplary mentoring ability will help them address issues of national importance, providing benefits for all Australians."
Thomas has more than 30 years of experience in nuclear and particle physics. He has held positions at the University of British Columbia, TRIUMF and CERN. He came to Jefferson Lab from the University of Adelaide in Australia, where he was the Elder Professor of Physics in the Department of Physics and Mathematical Physics. He also served as director of the Special Research Centre for the Subatomic Structure of Matter, director of the Australian National Institute for Theoretical Physics, Physics Department Chair, associate dean of the Faculty of Science and University Council Representative.
Thomas also has served as President of the Australian Institute of Physics. He is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, as well as a Fellow of the American Physical Society, the Australian Institute of Physics and the (UK) Institute of Physics. He has received numerous awards, including the Harrie Massey Medal (IoP), the Thomas Ranken Lyle Medal (Australian Academy of Science), a von Humboldt Research Prize (Alexander von Humboldt Research Foundation) and the Walter Boas Medal (AIP). His interests include chiral symmetry, lattice QCD, quark models, structure functions, nuclear forces, symmetries and symmetry breaking. Thomas earned his B.S. and Ph.D. from Flinders University in Australia. He also holds a D.Sc. from Adelaide University and has authored more than 500 scientific papers.
Media Contact: Dean Golembeski, Public Affairs, (757) 269-7689 or deang@jlab.org