# LeRoy Apker Award

The LeRoy Apker Award is a prize that has been awarded annually by the American Physical Society (APS) since 1978, named after the experimental physicist LeRoy Apker. The recipients are undergraduate students chosen for "outstanding achievements in physics" in order to "provide encouragement to young physicists who have demonstrated great potential for future scientific accomplishment." The Apker award is the highest honor awarded to undergraduate physicists in the United States. Generally, two prizes are awarded each year: one to a student from a Ph.D. granting institution and one to a student from a non-Ph.D. granting institution. Prior to 1995 the award was granted without institutional distinction, and a single honoree annually was common. The award consists of a $5,000 prize, allowance for traveling to the APS March Meeting to present the work, and a certificate.

## Recipients

| Year | Recipient | Institution at time of award | Awarded for |
| 1978 | David E. Heckerman | | |
| 1979 | Louis A. Bloomfield | | |
| 1980 | Richard P. Binzel | | |
| 1981 | Mark B. Ritter | | |
| 1982 | Subir Sachdev | | |
| 1983 | Raymond E. Goldstein | | |
| 1984 | Tak Leuk Kwok | | |
| 1985 | Julia W.P. Hsu | | |
| 1986 | Terrence L. Hwa | | |
| 1987 | Gerard C.L. Wong | | |
| 1987 | C. James Yeh | | |
| 1988 | Leo R. Radzihovsky | | |
| 1989 | Deborah L. Kuchnir | | |
| 1989 | Steven H. Simon | | |
| 1990 | Charles J. Brabec | | |
| 1991 | Dean Lee | | |
| 1991 | Stephen Quake | | |
| 1992 | Christopher Barnes | | |
| 1992 | Justin L. Mortara | University of Chicago | "For his achievements as an undergraduate student at The University of Chicago, particularly his research on 'Search for a 17-keV neutrino in the β-decay of S-35'." |
| 1993 | David Kaiser | | |
| 1994 | Arthur Chu | Harvard University | "For his achievements as an undergraduate student at Harvard University, particularly his research on 'Laser Manipulation of Three Level System'." |
| 1994 | Brandon C. Collings | Hamilton College | "For his achievements as an undergraduate student at Hamilton College, particularly his research on 'Avalanche Upconversion in LaF3:Tm3+'." |
| 1994 | Steven S. Gubser | Princeton University | "For his achievements as an undergraduate student at Princeton University, particularly his research on 'Geodesic Distance in Two-Dimensional Quantum Gravity'." |
| 1995 | Benjamin F. Williams | Middlebury College | "For his achievements as an undergraduate student at Middlebury College, particularly his research on 'Identification and Study of Supernova Remnants in the Galaxy M31'." |
| 1995 | Frederick B. Mancoff | Stanford University | "For his achievements as an undergraduate student at Stanford University, particularly his research on 'Two-Dimensional Electron Transport and Magnetoresistance Effects in a Random Magnetic Dipole Array'." |
| 1996 | Benjamin S. Williams | Haverford College | "For his achievements as an undergraduage student at Haverford College, particularly his research on 'Mixing of a Passive Scalar in Two-Dimensional Turbulence'." |
| 1996 | Christopher Schaffer | University of Florida | "For his achievements as an undergraduate student at the University of Florida, particularly for his research on 'Programmable Shaping of Ultrabroad-bandwidth Pulses from a Ti:sapphire Laser'." |
| 1997 | Anna Lopatnikova | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | "Renormalization-Group Theory of Superfluidity and Phase Separation of Helium Mixtures Immersed in Aerogel." |
| 1997 | Cameron Geddes | Swarthmore College | "Spheromak Equilibrium Studies on SSX." |
| 1998 | Brian Richard D'Urso | | |
| 1998 | Gwendolyn Rae Bell | Harvey Mudd College | "For her achievements as an undergraduate student at Harvey Mudd College and particularly her research Mass of the Milky Way and Dwarf Spheroidal Stream Membership." |
| 1999 | Brian Gerke | Williams College | "For his achievements as an undergraduate student at Williams College and particularly his research entitled, Ultrafast Photoisomerization Dynamics: A Tight-binding Model Applied to Small Alkenes." |
| 1999 | Govind Krishnaswami | University of Rochester | "For his achievements as an undergraduate student at the University of Rochester and particularly his research entitled, A Model of Interacting Partons for Hadronic Structure Functions." |
| 2000 | Heather J. Lynch | Princeton University | "A Kondo Box: Coulomb Blockade and the Kondo Effect in Iron-doped Copper Nanoparticles." |
| 2000 | Jacob Jonathan Krich | Swarthmore College | "Correlation Length and Chirality of Isotropic Short-Range Order in Nematic and Chiral Nematic Liquid Crystals." |
| 2000 | Steven J. Oliver | University of California, Berkeley | "Laser Cooling to High Phase Space Densities." |
| 2001 | Kathryn Todd | California Institute of Technology | "Studies of Double-Layer Two-Dimensional Electron Gases." |
| 2001 | Robert Wagner | Illinois State University | "Intense Laser Physics Theory." |
| 2002 | Jason Alicea | University of Florida | "Resistance of multilayers with long length scale interfacial roughness." |
| 2002 | S. Charles Doret | Williams College | "A Precise Measurement of the Stark Shift in the 6P1/2 �> 7S1/2 378 nm Transition in Atomic Thallium." |
| 2003 | Nathaniel Stern | Harvey Mudd College | "Exchange Anisotropy and Giant Magnetoresistance in Thin Film Spin Valves Containing Ultra-thin IrMn Antiferromagnetic Layers." |
| 2003 | Peter Onyisi | University of Chicago | "Looking for New Invisible Particles." |
| 2004 | Jonathan Heckman | Princeton University | "Large R-charged Sectors of the Ads/CFT Correspondence." |
| 2004 | Nathan Oken Hodas | Williams College | "Oligo-RNA Optimal Binding Calculation." |
| 2005 | David W. Miller | University of Chicago | "Search for high energy axions with the CAST calorimeter." |
| 2005 | Matthew Paoletti | Bucknell University | "Experimental Studies of the Effects of Chaotic Mixing on an Advection-Reaction-Diffusion System." |
| 2005 | Nathaniel Craig | Harvard University | "Tunable Nonlocal Spin Control in a Coupled Quantum Dot System." |
| 2006 | Huanqian Loh | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | "Applications of Correlated Photon Pairs: Sub-Shot Noise Interferometry and Entanglement." |
| 2006 | Hugh Churchill | Oberlin College | "Low-temperature infrared spectroscopy of H$_2$ in solid C$_{60}$." |
| 2006 | Stephanie Moyerman | Harvey Mudd College | "Magnetic Structure Variations in Spin Valves with Pico-Scale Antiferromagnetic Layers." |
| 2007 | Bryce Gadway | Colgate University | "Creation and Measurement of a Single-Proton Two-Qubit State to Test a Bell-Kochen-Specker Inequality." |
| 2007 | Matthew Becker | University of Michigan | "The Velocity Structure of MAXBCG Galaxy Clusters from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey." |
| 2008 | Byron C. Drury | Haverford College | "Factoring Quantum Logic Gates with Cartan Involutions." |
| 2008 | Sujit S. Datta | University of Pennsylvania | "Surface Potentials and Layer Charge Distributions in Few-Layer Graphene Films." |
| 2009 | Bilin Zhuang | Wellesley College | "Thermodynamics of Ising Systems of the Triangular Kagome Lattice and Small-Model Approximations to Geometrically Frustrated Systems" |
| 2009 | Kathryn Greenberg | Mount Holyoke College | "Thermal Coupling and Lensing in Arrays of Vertical Cavity Surface Emitting Lasers" |
| 2010 | Chia Wei Hsu | Wesleyan University | "Self-Assembly of DNA-Linked Nanoparticles." |
| 2010 | Christopher Chudzicki | Williams College | "Parallel Entanglement Distribution on Hypercube Networks." |
| 2011 | Bethany Jochim | Augustana College | "Strong-field dissociation dynamics of NO2+: A multiphoton electronic or vibrational excitation." |
| 2011 | Djordje Radicevic | Princeton University | "Holography from Renormalization Group Flows." |
| 2012 | Theodore Yoder | Franklin & Marshall College | "The Standard Model Extension and its Application to Hydrogen." |
| 2012 | Yuliya Dovzhenko | Princeton University | "Coherent Control of a Semiconductor Charge Qubit." |
| 2013 | Guy Geyer Marcus | Wesleyan University | "Rotational Dynamics of Anisotropic Particles in Turbulence: Measurements of Lagrangian Vorticity and the Effects of Alignment with the Velocity Gradient." |
| 2013 | Hao Shi | Rochester Institute of Technology | "Torsional Optomechanics: A Dialogue Between Spinning Photons and Twisting Oscillators." |
| 2014 | Kevin Seltzer | Loyola University Maryland | "Finite Temperature Casimir Effect for Charged Scalars in a Magnetic Field" |
| 2014 | Michael Veit | University of Minnesota | "Transport Measurements of the Cuprate Superconductor HgBa$_2$Cu$_{4+δ}$" |
| 2015 | Adam Sean Jermyn | California Institute of Technology | "For original contributions to understanding how the atmospheres of pulsar companions are heated and for elucidating the observational consequences." |
| 2015 | Benjamin Lee Augenbraun | Williams College | "For high-precision measurement of the DC Stark shift in the two-step 5P1/2 —> 6S1/2—> 6P1/2 transition in atomic indium." |
| 2016 | Nick Rivera | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | "For important advances in the field of photonics and exceptional leadership of the Society of Physics Students." |
| 2016 | Stephanie Gorczyca | University of San Diego | "For investigation into the effect of crowding on dynamics of DNA using single-molecule tracking techniques." |
| 2017 | Angela F. Harper | Wake Forest University | "for significant contributions to printed electronics research and outstanding leadership of the Society of Physics Students and Society of Women in STEM fields." |
| 2017 | Calvin Leung | Harvey Mudd College | "for development and experimental implementation of astronomical random number generators for loophole-free tests of Bell’s inequality and other applications in quantum fundamentals, astrophysics, and tests of general relativity." |
| 2018 | Eric S. Cooper | Pomona College | "For outstanding contributions towards understanding the adaptive significance of ballistichory by modeling and comparing the flight of seeds dispersed by Acanthaceae fruits." |
| 2018 | Nicholas E. Sherman | University of California, Davis | "For outstanding undergraduate research in theoretical condensed matter and mathematical physics dealing with the subjects of quantum entanglement in mixed states, NMR in highly frustrated magnets and anyon dispersion in perturbed Toric Code models." |
| 2019 | Katelyn Cook | Houghton College | "For experimental contributions toward the measurement of low-energy nuclear cross sections using inertial confinement fusion." |
| 2019 | Tali Khain | University of Michigan | "For original contributions to understanding the outer solar system, including characterizing the dynamical properties of hundreds of new objects in the Kuiper Belt; establishing the orbital stability of a new dwarf planet; and investigating the effects of a hypothesized distant new planet." |
| 2020 | EliseAnne C Koskelo | Pomona College | "For the development and experimental validation of an analytic model that exploits noise in CCD-based thermoreflectance imaging systems to maximize the thermal resolution of the technique via the stochastic resonance effect." |
| 2020 | Nicholas Poniatowski | University of Maryland, College Park | "For original contributions to understanding the outer solar system, including characterizing the dynamical properties of hundreds of new objects in the Kuiper Belt; establishing the orbital stability of a new dwarf planet; and investigating the effects of a hypothesized distant new planet." |
| 2021 | Caelan Brooks | Kutztown University of Pennsylvania | "For the discovery of distinct dynamical regimes for coherent ultracold atoms confined in a ring-shaped lattice potential; and for developing a statistical model that depicts the formation of phenotypic patterns associated with bacterial biofilm growth." |
| 2021 | Joseph R. Farah | University of Massachusetts Boston | "For the invention of the selective dynamical imaging method, with applications for studying rapidly-varying black holes." |
| 2022 | Adam Dionne | Williams College | "For the development of a novel experimental and theoretical framework to establish a new understanding of nutrient dispersal and transport in Physarum polycephalum." |
| 2022 | Matthew Cufari | Syracuse University | "For verifying the Hills Mechanism as a viable method to generate repeating partial tidal disruption events." |