A notable, new academic prize has been announced at Ohio State University.
The “Agostini Prize” is now the university’s most prestigious award for scholarly and artistic achievement, and will be annually awarded to one professor whose research or creative work should be considered “world class,” according to the Ohio State Department of Enterprise for Research, Innovation and Knowledge's website.
Dawn Larzelere, the associate vice president of operations for the Dept. of Enterprise for Research, Innovation and Knowledge, said the award was named after Pierre Agostini, a Nobel Laureate and emeritus professor of physics who won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2023.
“He's our first sitting faculty member that has won the Nobel Prize for his single scholarly achievement,” Larzelere said. “And so it was that recognition. We've had others that are affiliated with the university or maybe won it at another institution, have come here, or alumni have come here, or been part of a larger group, but he was the first to win it.”
Louis DiMauro, a physics professor at Ohio State and close friend of Agostini, said it was Agostini’s lifelong work with attosecond pulses, the fastest pulse of light which can be created by humans, which led to his being awarded the Nobel Prize.
“Through this new process, this new physics that was discovered, starting with Pierre’s 1979 paper, which kind of like opened a bit of a Pandora's box at that point, that through those long years of study of these kind of physics, did the possibility emerge that now maybe you can make attosecond light pulses,” DiMauro said.
DiMauro said the work to get this award included two major challenges: how to make an attosecond pulse and how to measure it. Once this was done, DiMauro had a good feeling about the possibility of winning a Nobel Prize.
“I got a sense that they were convinced that this was Nobel worthy, this attosecond field Pierre was identified for, but I didn't know when it would come. I didn't think it was going to come that year,” DiMauro said.
Larzelere said due to the recognition of Agostini’s award, it only felt right to name the award after him.
“A Nobel Prize is at the pinnacle of a researcher's career so to celebrate that we have continued, and we will continue to look at ways to celebrate Professor Agostini's success, but also the success of our faculty that are doing research every day,” Larzelere said. “So the Pierre Agostini prize was named in recognition of this honor that he received.”
DiMauro agreed and highlighted the magnitude of winning the Nobel Prize.
"This is a monumental event,” DiMauro said. “The other thing is, when you win a Nobel Prize, the world pays attention. This is, you know, international, so, I think it's quite proper to name this prize after Pierre, the first Nobel Laureate.”
Larzelere said in planning the award, there was intentional effort to highlight all 15 colleges at Ohio State, not just physics.
“It's not just for physics. Our faculty excellence and eminence is across multiple disciplines, including the arts,” Larzelere said. “We have a College of Arts and Sciences for example. We have awards in that space that are national and international, that our faculty members are being recognized in, so we wanted to make sure that people didn't think it was just physics.”
In addition to the recognition of winning the award, Larzelere said there’s other perks in addition to winning the award.
“There is a $50,000 prize that goes along with [the recognition]. That's a $25,000 cash award and $25,000 to be put towards a research budget,” Larzelere said. “We also note that the awardee will have the opportunity to present a brief overview of their work to the Ohio State Board of Trustees in our research, innovation and strategic partnership committee.”
The nomination period has officially been opened and Larzelere said the committee is currently in the process of looking into all submissions.
“We are looking for nominations through February, and you know, from there, we'll work with a committee of distinguished faculty members to go through those nominations to determine the winner,” Larzelere said.
Though the exact date for when the inaugural prize winner will be announced, Larzelere said she’s hoping it will be around the next time Agostini comes back to campus.
“We are hopeful he will be in town this spring, and so we're timing the announcement of the first award so he can participate in presenting that first winner,” Larzelere said.