On June 22, the Commission on Particles and Fields of the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP) attributed the 2016 Young Scientist Award to

Dr.WEN Liangjian (Image by IHEP)

Dr. WEN Liangjian for his original contributions to the physics of neutrinos, and in particular, to the discovery of the non-zero neutrino mixing angle θ₁₃. This is for the first time that the award is given to a particle physicist from Chinese mainland. 

“WEN made major contributions to the discovery of non-zero θ₁₃ at the Daya Bay reactor neutrino experiment, spanning from the design, construction and commissioning of the detector to the software and data analysis. In particular, he developed a new energy calibration scheme, an energy response model, and novel methods to reject backgrounds and determine systematics, which led to the rapid and precise measurement of θ₁₃.” introduced on the IUPAP website. 

WEN graduated from the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) in 2005, and received his Ph.D. from IHEP in 2010. His major research work includes the measurement of θ₁₃ at Daya Bay experiment, on the search of neutrino-less double beta decays (0nbb) with EXO-200/nEXO, and on the determination of the neutrino mass hierarchy (MH) with JUNO. 

“When I was first nominated, I did not expect that I could win this award in the end. I feel lucky to be part of the experiment and also much under pressure. This award is a huge encouragement for me and it would also be the driving power for my future work”, WEN said after knowing the news about the prize. 

Founded in Brussels in 1922, IUPAP is one of top organizations for academic exchanges and cooperation in the field of physics and one of the most authoritative communities for international physicists. IUPAP Young Scientist Awards was first established in 2006 to recognize young scholars in the field of physics for their outstanding contributions and developing potentials. 

CV for Dr. WEN Liangjian 

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE 

Jul 2012 - present Associate Research Fellow, Institute of High Energy Physics, China 

Physics Coordinator of the JUNO experiment; Group leader of Chinese team in the EXO-200/nEXO experiments; Analysis co-coordinator of EXO-200 

Oct 2012 - Jul 2014 Postdoctoral Associate/Visiting Scholar, Stanford University, USA 

Group leader of IHEP team in the EXO-200 experiment; Energy calibration convenor (2012-2013) and Physics Fitting convenor (2014) of EXO-200 

Jul 2010 - May 2012 Postdoctoral Associate, Institute of High Energy Physics, China  

Complete the core analysis leading to the discovery of non-zero neutrino mixing angle θ₁₃ by the Daya Bay Experiment. 

HONOURS AND AWARDS 

2014 Outstanding Young Fellow, CAS Center for Excellence in Particle Physics, China 

2014 Outstanding Young Scientists Program (2013), CAS, China 

2013 Chinese Academy of Sciences Distinguished Achievement Award (to the key collective of Daya Bay Reactor Neutrino Experiment) 

2012 ChenGuang Cup Outstanding Paper Prize (to the discovery of non-zero 13), Chinese Physics Society: High Energy Physics Commission 

2011 Best Fellow Prize for the World Federation of Scientists National Scholarship Programme, International Centre for Scientific Culture - World Laboratory, by Antonino Zichichi