Israeli scientist awarded prestigious physics prize

Dr. Zohar Komargodski, of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, was awarded the New Horizons in Physics Prize on Tuesday. The prize is given out every year by the Fundamental Physics Prize Foundation to three promising young researchers.

As a prize laureate, Komargodski will receive $100,000.

A press release issued by the Weizmann Institute said that Komargodski’s research involves quantum theory, and sheds new light on a number of related fields. One of his outstanding achievements was an article he published with the Institute’s Prof. Adam Schwimmer in 2011. This paper provided proof for a basic conjecture concerning theories of quantum fields (theories that describe the behavior of elementary particles) in four-dimensional space-time.

In 2008, Komargodski received his PhD from the Weizmann Institute in physics. His postdoctoral fellowship was at Princeton University’s Institute for Advanced Studies, after which he returned to a senior scientist position in the Weizmann Institute Particle Physics and Astrophysics Department.

This is the second consecutive year that a Weizmann Institute alumnus has received an award from the prestigious Fundamental Physics Prize Foundation. Last year, an inaugural Fundamental Physics Prize was awarded to Weitzmann graduate Nathan Seiberg, who is now also at the Institute for Advanced Studies at Princeton.

The website for the Fundamental Physics Prize Foundation describes the organization as a “not-for-profit corporation dedicated to advancing our knowledge of the universe at the deepest level by awarding annual prizes for scientific breakthroughs, as well as communicating the excitement of fundamental physics to the public.”