Congratulations Junko Shigemitsu
Congratualations Junko Shigemitsu!
Junko Shigemitsu was recognized as one of this year's Distinguished Scholars. The Distinguished Scholar Award, established in 1978, recognizes exceptional scholarly accomplishments by senior professors who have compiled a substantial body of research. The award is supported by the Office of Research. Recipients are nominated by their departments and chosen by a committee of senior faculty, including several past recipients of the award. Distinguished Scholars receive a $3,000 honorarium and a research grant of $20,000 to be used over the next three years.
Shigemitsu received her BS from Sophia University in Japan and her PhD from Cornell University. She began her career at Ohio State in 1982. Shigemitsu was named a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 2000. She has published 79 papers in top-tier physics journals and her papers have accumulated more than 4,000 citations. In addition, she has been funded continuously by the Department of Energy since 1982.
Shigemitsu is the co-founder and co-leader of the HPQCD Collaboration, one of the most successful lattice QCD groups in the world. The HPQCD Collaboration was the first group to show that many known properties of subatomic particles could be calculated to within a few percent errors. Their recent results have been crucial for interpreting new measurements from high-energy physics experiments.
According to one colleague, “Junko’s contributions to elementary particle physics through her incisive breakthrough lattice QCD calculations are first rate. They hold the promise to reveal a world of new phenomena.” Another colleague said, “The work is not only important, but also intellectually and technically impressive. It pushes the frontier of modern computer technology, and has had spin-off effects feeding back into that field.”
