On the occasion of the birthday of P.A.M. Dirac, the ICTP Dirac Medal Committee takes pleasure in announcing that the 2007 Dirac Medal and Prize will be awarded to Jean Iliopoulos, Laboratoire de Physique Théorique, Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris, France and Luciano Maiani, Università degli Studi di Roma "La Sapienza", Italy "For their work on the physics of the charm quark, a major contribution to the birth of the Standard Model, the modern theory of Elementary Particles."
The awards ceremony will be held at a later date.
The Dirac Medal selection committee is currently composed of Philip W. Anderson, Princeton University, USA; Nicola Cabibbo, University of Rome “La Sapienza”, Italy; David Gross, University of California at Santa Barbara, USA; Leo P. Kadanoff, University of Chicago, USA; Lord Martin Rees, University of Cambridge, UK; and Carl Wieman, University of Colorado, Boulder, USA.
Established in 1985 by the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics, the Dirac Medal, which is now recognized as one of the world’s most prestigious prizes in physics, is given to scientists who have made significant contributions to theoretical physics and mathematics. Each recipient receives a cash award and a medal, and will also present a Dirac Medal lecture at ICTP at a later date. Recipients of the Nobel Prize, Fields Medal and Wolf Foundation Prize are not eligible for the Dirac Medal.
The announcement of the Dirac Medal is made each year on 8 August, the birth date of the great 20th century physicist Paul A.M. Dirac, who won the Nobel Prize in 1933. Dirac was a close associate and friend of ICTP from the Centre’s first days in the early 1960s until his death in 1984.
For additional information about the Dirac Medal and the list of previous winners, see http://www.ictp.trieste.it/~sci_info/awards/Dirac/DiracMedal.html