Shijie Zhong, an assistant professor of physics at the University of Colorado at Boulder, has been awarded a prestigious $625,000 Packard Fellowship.
The David and Lucile Packard Foundation cited Zhong and 23 other recipients as among the most promising young science and engineering researchers at universities in the United States. Other 2001 recipients included young faculty members from Yale, Princeton, Harvard and Stanford universities, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the universities of Chicago, California and Michigan.
Zhong was the only recipient in the state of Colorado. He becomes the ninth CU-Boulder professor to receive the fellowship and the fourth from the physics department since the fellowship program began in 1988.
"The physics department is honored to have Shijie Zhong chosen as a 2001 David and Lucile Packard Fellow, but we are not surprised by his selection," said John Cumalat, chair of the physics department at CU-Boulder. "We selected him as our highest rated candidate for an assistant professor position in theoretical geophysics from over 100 applicants, some of whom were tenure-track faculty at Ivy League institutions. The fellowship will allow him to concentrate on his research without having funding limitations."
Each recipient receives a grant of $125,000 per year for five years to pursue his or her research with few funding restrictions.
"We believe that we are the only physics department in the country to have had four recipients since the program began in 1988," Cumalat said. "When one considers that a successful candidate must first be selected as one of the top two junior science and engineering faculty members within his university and then be selected as one of the top 24 candidates from 50 institutions, it is a remarkable achievement."
CU-Boulder physics professors John Price, Anton Andreev and Leo Radzihovsky also have won Packard Fellowships.
Zhong's research interests are in geophysics where he studies the physical processes that govern the Earth and other planets. He said understanding how planets evolved over time and the processes involved are the primary goals of his research.
Born in China, Zhong earned a bachelor of science degree at the University of Science and Technology of China and a master's of science degree at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He then earned a doctorate from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor in 1994.
Zhong was a research fellow at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif., and a research scientist at MIT. He joined the physics faculty at CU-Boulder in August 2000.
Since 1988, the Packard Foundation has awarded fellowships totaling $170 million to 296 faculty members at 50 universities in the United States.
The 2001 fellows were nominated by their university presidents and recommended by a panel of nationally recognized scientists and engineers.
The physics department is part of CU-Boulder's College of Arts and Sciences.
The Packard Foundation, a private family foundation based in Los Altos, Calif., provides funding for nonprofit organizations in the areas of science, population, conservation, children, families, communities, arts, organization effectiveness and philanthropy.