Indian American physicist receives prestigious award

- ADVERTISEMENT -

Milind Diwan, a senior physicist at Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, New York has recently received the 2017 Brookhaven Science & Technology Award in Physics.

He has made important experimental contributions to understand the properties of neutrinos and has also provided leadership for a strong neutrino program in the United States as well as played a central role for Brookhaven in the coming generation of neutrino experiments.

Diwan was instrumental in bringing Brookhaven into the Daya Bay experiment and recognized the experiment’s importance and how to leverage Brookhaven’s expertise with liquid scintillator development.

The successful observation of non-zero θ13 was critical for establishing the Long Baseline Neutrino Facility (LBNF) and Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) to measure charge-parity violation in neutrinos, to perhaps explain why we exist, as the universe does not contain equal amounts of matter and antimatter that would have annihilated before stars and planets formed.

Diwan’s extensive knowledge of science and technology, and his indefatigable determination has been critical for LBNF/DUNE and has developed the scientific case himself as well as attracted partners from around the world and helped advance the program through multiple advisory panels as it became the centerpiece of the onshore U.S. High Energy Physics program, becoming the largest international mega-science experiment hosted in the United States.

Diwan was born and brought up in Sangli, Maharashtra and came to the United States after he completed the 10th grade.

He received his undergraduate degree from the University of Colorado Boulder and pursued his PhD in Physics at Brown University.

Brookhaven National Laboratory is a government facility in the United States and works on many important projects that further the research in the field of physics.