Deborah Jin, an adjoint professor of physics at the University of Colorado at Boulder and a fellow of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, will receive the same top prize from the international honor society Sigma Xi awarded to animal behaviorist Jane Goodall and oceanographer Robert Ballard.
Other prominent recipients of the William Procter Prize for Scientific Achievement include paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould, anthropologist Margaret Mead, cardiac surgeon Michael DeBakey, physicist Murray Gell-Mann and space scientist James Van Allen.
Jin is a fellow of JILA, a joint institute of CU-Boulder and NIST. Her research has been described as the crucial first step in developing superconductors that work at room temperature, which could lead to faster computers and other advances.
The Procter Prize will be presented to Jin during Sigma Xi's annual meeting Nov. 12-15 in Houston. The award has been presented annually since 1950 to an outstanding scientist or engineer who is known for effective communication of complex ideas. The prize includes a Steuben glass sculpture and $5,000, with an additional $5,000 research grant going to a young researcher designated by Jin.
Founded in 1886, Sigma Xi is the international honor society for research scientists and engineers, with nearly 60,000 members in more than 500 chapters in North America and around the world. Membership is by invitation. Over the years, more than 200 Sigma Xi members have received the Nobel Prize.