Ellen Zweibel to Receive the Maxwell Prize in Plasma Physics

Ellen Gould Zweibel, the William L. Kraushaar Professor of Physics and Astronomy and chair of the department of astronomy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, will be presented with the 2016 James Clerk Maxwell Prize for Plasma Physics from the American Physical Society. Professor Zweibel will receive a $10,000 prize plus travel expenses to the society’s annual meeting in San Jose, California, where the award will be presented.

The citation for the award states that Dr. Zweibel is being honored for “seminal research in the energetics, stability, and dynamics of astrophysical plasmas, including those related to stars and galaxies, and for leadership in linking plasma and other astrophysical phenomena.”

Professor Zweibel is a graduate of the University of Chicago, where she majored in mathematics. She holds a Ph.D. in astrophysics from Princeton University in New Jersey.