Dean Lee, professor of physics at FRIB and in Michigan State University’s Department of Physics and Astronomy and Theoretical Nuclear Science Department Head at FRIB, was awarded the Outstanding Faculty Award by the MSU College of Natural Science (NatSci) at the NatSci Annual Meeting and Awards Ceremony.
The ceremony, which annually recognizes NatSci faculty, staff, and students for their achievements and contributions, was held 15 November at MSU’s STEM Teaching and Learning Facility.
Lee earned his PhD in physics from Harvard University in 1998. After graduation, he worked as a postdoc at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He then spent 16 years on the faculty at North Carolina State University. Lee joined the faculty at FRIB and MSU in 2017.
“It is an honor to be listed with the other exceptional scholars and leaders who have won this award and done so much to help understand the world around us and to make it a better place for all,” Lee said. “I feel deep gratitude to my colleagues who nominated me and to everyone who has helped me and provided encouragement throughout my career.”
Lee’s research group is focused on connecting fundamental physics to forefront experiments. The group studies many aspects of quantum few- and many-body systems. Together with collaborators, the group has developed lattice Monte Carlo methods that probe strongly-interacting systems and study superfluidity, nuclear clustering, phase transitions, and other emergent phenomena from first principles. The group investigates many facets of the strong nuclear force, from the underlying symmetries of quantum chromodynamics to predictions for nuclear structure, reactions, and thermodynamics.
Lee’s group is also engaged in novel applications of new technologies for scientific research. This includes new algorithms for quantum computing and the development of emulators and machine learning algorithms based on concepts such as eigenvector continuation.
“Congratulations to Dean for being honored by the College of Natural Science,” said FRIB Laboratory Director Thomas Glasmacher. “His dedication to the laboratory, the university, and his students is truly inspiring, and it's wonderful to see his efforts being recognized with this award.”
The awards are based on nominations submitted from across the college and are evaluated by the NatSci Awards Committee and the Center for Integrative Studies in General Science staff. As a recipient of the NatSci Outstanding Faculty Award, Lee will be in consideration for the William J. Beal Outstanding Faculty Award, which is administered by the All-University Awards Committee.
Michigan State University (MSU) operates the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) as a user facility for the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science (DOE-SC), with financial support from and furthering the mission of the DOE-SC Office of Nuclear Physics.