Georgetown University Distinguished Achievement in Research Award 2007


2007 Distinguished Achievement in Research Award to James Freericks, Professor of Physics,

in recognition of his selection as a Fellow of the American Physical Society. Each year, no more than one-half of one percent of the current membership of the Society are recognized by their peers for election to the status of Fellow. The citation accompanying Dr. Freericks’ election reads, “for seminal results in applying dynamical mean-field theory to bulk and multilayered strongly correlated electron systems, significantly advancing our understanding of transport, light scattering, ordered phases and photoemission.” Each of these contributions addresses some of the most challenging and important problems in computational materials science.

Professor Freericks regularly publishes important work in the top journals of the field several times a year. Over the past three years he has published 6 papers in Physical Review Letters, 2 in Applied Physics Letters and one in Reviews of Modern Physics. He was recently recognized with one of only four awards by NASA’s National Leadership Computing System Initiative which granted 900,000 hours of time on the supercomputer Columbia.

Dr. Freericks’s election as an APS fellow is the culmination of over a decade of exceptional research at Georgetown. It is particularly remarkable that these accomplishments have been accompanied by similar excellence in teaching and service. His educational efforts have been consistently innovative and successful. He has served as both Department Chair and Director of Graduate Studies.

Of the twenty seven newly elected Fellows in the Division of Condensed Matter Physics, only seventeen others are from American universities and all of these are from institutions with physics programs much larger than Georgetown’s. Professor Freericks’s election is wonderful evidence of the truth of President DeGioia’s statement that while Georgetown may not historically have done big science, its faculty clearly does good science. James Freericks does remarkable science and the Graduate School is proud to honor him with this award.

(Excerpted from the presentation speech given by Timothy A. Barbari, Associate Provost for Research and Dean of the Graduate School, at the 2007 Graduate Commencement ceremony on Friday, May 18, 2007)


Last modified June 15, 2007

Jim Freericks, Professor of Physics