2021 Michael Faraday Medal and Prize awarded to Wits alumnus
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Dr Bucker Dangor acknowleged for his contribution to experimental plasma physics.
Wits alumnus and Distinguished Research Fellow at Imperial College London, Dr Aboubaker “Bucker” Dangor (BSc Hon 1971, DSc 2005), was awarded the prestigious 2021 Michael Faraday Medal and Prize by the Institute of Physics on 29 November 2021.
The prize is awarded for experimental physics and Dr Dangor is praised for “outstanding contributions to experimental plasma physics, and in particular for his role in the development of the field of laser–plasma acceleration.”
The Michael Faraday Medal and Prize is a gold medal awarded annually by the Institute of Physics and the medal is accompanied by a prize of £1000 and a certificate.
Dr Dangor said: “I am honoured and delighted to receive the award,” according to the Imperial College website.
Michael Faraday was an English experimental scientist who made important discoveries in electromagnetism. The unit of capacitance, the farad, is named after him.
Particle accelerators play a central role in many areas of science, including radiation therapy, light sources and high-energy physics searches. A candidate for taking particle accelerators to the next level are plasma-based acceleration schemes.
Dr Dangor was one of the first people to see the potential of plasma-based particle accelerators and his group was initially one of only a handful in the world studying the phenomena that could enable particle acceleration. His experiments in this field were hugely successful and laid the foundations of laser-driven particle accelerators.
Sources: Institute of Physics and Imperial College London