Xin Qian, a graduate student in Prof. Haiyan Gao’s Medium Energy Physics Group, is the winner of the 2010 Caltech Prize Fellowship in Experimental Physics or Astrophysics. The Fellowship is highly competitive. For the fall of 2010, Xin Qian is the only candidate in the world who has been awarded this prize Fellowship.
According to the Fellowship webpage: "This Fellowship program has been established to offer scientists, typically within a few years after receipt of the Ph.D., the opportunity to pursue new and innovative experimental research. It is expected that this research will require the support and use of facilities of one of the established experimental groups at Caltech. These Fellowships usually begin in fall 2010 and are for a three year duration. They carry a competitive annual stipend and salary combination and offer an annual research expense fund.’’ Xin joined Prof. Gao’s group at the age of 19 after receiving his B.S. degree in Physics from Beijing University. Xin is expected to receive his Ph.D. degree in summer of 2010 from his thesis research on a first experimental study of neutron transversity using a polarized 3He nuclear target at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (JLab). The neutron transversity is one of the novel QCD transverse spin phenomena, which is related to the relativistic nature of quarks inside a hadron. In addition to his thesis work, he has been a major player in a number of other experiments that Prof. Gao’s group leads at JLab and he is a lead author on 4 papers and has published 11 papers in total. Recently, as a co-spokesperson, Xin Qian defended to the 35th JLab Program Advisory Committee (JLab PAC35), an international panel of leading experts in nuclear physics, a large scale experiment on detailed study of neutron transverse spin physics using a 11-GeV energy upgraded CEBAF at JLab. This project has been fully approved by the JLab PAC35. Xin has accepted the Caltech Prize Fellowship offer and will carry out his research under the mentorship of Prof. R.D. McKeown, winner of the 2009 Bonner Prize in Nuclear Physics of the American Physical Society. Xin Qin plans to continue his exciting research program in QCD physics, and will embark on new physics in the Da Ya Bay θ13 neutrino experiment and a new experiment on dark matter search. Contributed by Prof. Haiyan Gao
Department of Physics
