Message of the Week, Monday 18 October 2021

Dear Physics Community,

At the end of a totally bizarre week, some news of five from our community honored by APS awards.  They are:

  • Bob Jaffe -2022 Joseph A. Burton Forum Award
  • Peter Fritschel – 2022 Richard A. Isaacson Award in Gravitational-Wave Science
  • Sean Robinson -2022 Jonathan F. Reichert and Barbara Wolff-Reichert Award for Excellence in Advanced Laboratory Instruction
  • Nikta Fakhri – 2022 Early Career Award for Soft Matter Research
  • Gene Dresselhaus – 2022 Oliver E. Buckley Condensed Matter Physics Prize

Congratulations to Bob, Peter, Sean, and Nikta.  Gene passed away two weeks ago.  There full list of APS awards is here.

Also last week: MIT learned the endowment performed very well in the last year and that MIT would be giving 3% raises, in addition to the usual merit increases.  Complications for those paid by grants will be handled soon.  In addition to the raise, new funds from the endowment will allow MIT to address priority needs and some of these funds will be available to Departments for their priorities as set forth in their strategic plans.  These funds would come through the annual Departmental budgeting process.  We plan to include funds for the mentoring program, DEI or Community officer, and basic computing service, and funds for staff and faculty development.  We also want to hear from across the Physics Community of other good ideas for the budget, so please look for a follow up message about this in the next day or two, when we undersrtand the timeline and process better.

A good week last week!

Peter