LSU Physics Professor Receives NSF CAREER Award

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 25, 2016

BATON ROUGE  - LSU Assistant Professor in the Department of Physics & Astronomy Ivan Agullo has received a five-year National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development, or CAREER, award to support his research on the early universe.

The NSF CAREER award is one of the foundation's most prestigious grants awarded to promising junior faculty who effectively integrate research and education within the context of the mission of their organization. Agullo will receive $400,000 for investigating the most extreme epochs in the evolution of the universe and obtaining avenues to observationally test the new ideas.

"This is a truly fascinating time for cosmology," said Agullo. "Recent observations have revealed remnants of physical processes that occurred a tiny fraction of a second after the so-called 'Big Bang.' However, the theoretical tools we currently have to interpret the data are far from complete. A key difficulty is how to make Einstein's theory of gravity consistent with quantum mechanics. The NSF CAREER Award will provide the support I need to focus my energy on understanding these fundamental questions, and to integrate my research and educational activities by involving students at LSU, and the general public in this fascinating field."

Agullo earned his bachelor's degree in physics, 2004, and received his Ph.D. in physics, 2009, from the University of Valencia, Spain. He was a Marie Curie Fellow at the University of Cambridge in the UK, and a post-doctoral researcher at Penn State University and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Among his honors, he received the First Award in the prestigious Gravity Research Foundation Essay competition in 2011, and the Young Researcher in Theoretical Physics Award from the Royal Spanish Physical Society, also in 2011.

About the NSF CAREER Award
The Faculty Early Career Development, or CAREER, Program is a foundation-wide activity that offers the National Science Foundation’s most prestigious awards in support of the early career development activities of those teacher-scholars who most effectively integrate research and education within the context of the mission of their organization.
Such activities should build a firm foundation for a lifetime of integrated contributions to research and education. NSF encourages submission of CAREER proposals from junior faculty members at all CAREER-eligible organizations and especially encourages women, members of underrepresented minority groups and persons with disabilities to apply.

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Mimi LaValle
LSU Department of Physics & Astronomy
225-578-1194
mlavall@lsu.edu

Alison Satake
LSU Media Relations
225-578-3870
asatake@lsu.edu 

More news and information can be found on LSU’s media center, www.lsu.edu/mediacenter

Last Updated: February 3, 2016