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| Dr. Michel Gingras, recipient of the 2009 CAP Brockhouse Medal |
Dr. Michel Gingras, Canadian physicist and internationally renowned expert in the field of magnetism, has been awarded the 2009 Canadian Association of Physicists (CAP) Brockhouse Medal. Gingras received this honour for his "seminal contributions to the statistical mechanics description of random disordered systems and geometrically frustrated magnetic systems." Dr. Gingras spent some of his formative years at TRIUMF as a research associate in the Theory Group.
The Brockhouse Medal was instituted in 1999 and is awarded each year to recognize and encourage outstanding experimental or theoretical contributions to condensed-matter and materials physics. The Medal was named in honour of Bertram Brockhouse, whose exceptional contributions to research in condensed matter physics in Canada were recognized by the 1994 Nobel Prize for Physics.
Dr. Gingras has made significant contributions to the phenomenon of highly frustrated magnetism and his research has had worldwide impact. In particular, he has produced groundbreaking work in understanding a new class of magnetic systems known as spin ices - work which has led to key new results within the condensed-matter physics community. Gingras is also well-known for his work in experimental materials phenomenon and for collaborating very closely with experimentalists.
"I am most honoured to have been awarded the 2009 Brockhouse Medal and to be included into this group of celebrated condensed matter physicists," said Gingras in a CAP press release this summer. "I take this opportunity to thank my students, post-docs, and experimental colleagues for their many key contributions to the research projects that led to this award."
Dr. Gingras completed both his B.Sc. (Honours) and M.Sc. (Physics) at l'Université Laval. In 1990, he completed his Ph.D. in Physics, specializing in statistical mechanics, at the University of British Columbia for which he received the Governor General's Gold Medal for most outstanding Ph.D. student graduating that year. Although Gingras left Canada for two years to work as an NSERC post-doctoral fellow at the Laboratoire de Physique Statistique at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris, he returned to Canada in 1992. At this time he began work at TRIUMF as a research associate in the Theory Group. Here he collaborated closely with the experimentalists performing muon spin resonance and relaxation experiments until 1996 when he began teaching at the University of Waterloo. Presently, Dr. Gingras is a Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Waterloo and holds the Canada Research Chair in Condensed-Matter Physics and Statistical Mechanics.
Dr. Gingras was awarded the 2009 Brockhouse Medal on June 9, 2009 during the CAP awards banquet at the Université de Moncton. The awards banquet was part of the annual CAP Congress at which Gingras presented a plenary lecture entitled, "Exotic Collective Phenomena in Geometrically and Randomly Frustrated Rare-Earth Magnetic Systems."
-- Meghan Magee, Communications Assistant
Based on the CAP Press Release, "The 2009 CAP/DCMMP Brockhouse Medal is awarded to Michel Gingras."
Photo: www.cap.ca