University of Colorado Boulder Physics Professor Jamie Nagle has been awarded the prestigious Distinguished Research Lectureship by the university. This award is among the highest honors bestowed upon a faculty member by their peers, recognizing Nagle's distinguished body of work, academic achievements, and significant contributions to CU Boulder鈥檚 educational and service missions.听
The Distinguished Research Lectureship is awarded annually to a tenured faculty member, Research Professor, or Adjoint Professor who has been with the university for at least five years. A faculty review panel evaluates nominees, and those selected are invited to present a public lecture highlighting their work. The award recipients receive a $2,000 honorarium and are celebrated for their contributions to CU Boulder and the broader academic community.听
As a Professor of Physics, Nagle has spent much of his career investigating the early universe through high-energy nuclear physics. His research has focused on understanding the quark-gluon plasma, a state of matter theorized to have existed just microseconds after the Big Bang.听听
鈥淎s you go back to about 6 microseconds after the universe started, the temperature was around two trillion Kelvin,鈥� Nagle explained. 鈥淚t was theorized that protons and neutrons inside of nuclei would melt away, creating a bath of more fundamental particles鈥攓uarks and gluons.鈥澨�
Nagle's work involves recreating droplets of this quark-gluon plasma in a laboratory setting by colliding large nuclei at nearly the speed of light. These collisions occur at the world鈥檚 highest energy accelerators, including the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York and the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Geneva, Switzerland.听听
鈥淚n the world's highest energy accelerators, we can collide very large nuclei like gold, lead, or platinum at such high velocities that we create a tiny droplet of this 2 trillion Kelvin plasma,鈥� he said.听
Reflecting on the award, Nagle expressed deep gratitude and a sense of accomplishment: 鈥淚t means a lot to me. You get to a certain middle age and are more self-confident, but this recognition feels rewarding. There's a lot of effort, and much of the hard work goes unnoticed. It鈥檚 nice to feel like the fruits of that labor are appreciated.鈥澨�
The Distinguished Research Lectureship also emphasizes communicating complex scientific concepts to broader audiences. For Nagle, this is a vital part of his work: 鈥淭his award is very meaningful to me because I often listen to the lectures of past recipients. It's about communicating the broader context of why this scientific research is important, not just within the microcosm of nuclear physics.鈥澨�
Nagle鈥檚 lecture is expected to take place in February 2025.听听