Howard L. Schultz, Sr. Prize Lecture

The Howard L. Schultz, Sr. Prize Lecture is given each year by a distinguished physicist in honor of Howard L. Schultz, Sr. who received his PhD in Physics from Yale in 1937, where he was an instructor from 1938 until 1940. Professor Schultz joined the Yale physics faculty in 1945, and immediately began work in building atom‐smashing devices. Between 1961 and 1976 he was director of the Electron Linear Accelerator laboratory. Earlier, in 1951, he headed a project that expanded the Yale linear accelerator to a 15‐section, 6.5 million‐electron‐volt machine. Upon his death in 1977, a prize was started and awarded to seniors majoring in physics in recognition of their fine academic record and for the promise of important contributions to the field of physics. This lecture is usually held in the Spring term and speakers are suggested and invited by the Yale Society of Physics Students (SPS).

Started in 2018

2024 (November 18): Helen Quinn, SLAC and Stanford University, “Reminiscences on my career in physics, and the early days of the Standard Model”

2023 (December 4): Roxanne Guenette, University of Manchester, “Neutrinos: From zeros to heroes?” [video]

2023 (April 28): Kerstin Perez, Columbia University, “Scanning the Sky for Dark Matter: New Windows on Astroparticle Interactions”.

2021 (May 3): Monika Schleier-Smith, Stanford University, “Choreographing Quantum Spin Dynamics with Light”.  [video]

2019 (April 11): F. Duncan M. Haldane, 2016 Nobel Laureate in Physics, Princeton University, “Topological Quantum Matter, Entanglement, and the Second Quantum Revolution”.

2018 (April 27): Nima Arkani-Hamed, Institute for Advanced Study, “Calculate and Observe: Frontiers of Theory and Experiment in Fundamental Physics”.