Brian Schwartz Joins Hawking, et al, as Winner of  the Gemant Award

Brian B. Schwartz has been selected as the 2009 winner of the Andrew W. Gemant  Award, given annually by the American Institute of Physics to recognize significant contributions to the cultural, artistic, or humanistic dimension of physics. Schwartz  is Vice President for Research and Sponsored Programs at the Graduate Center, where he directs the acclaimed Science & the Arts series of public programs.

The award citation honors Schwartz “for ingenious creativity in engaging the public with the history and cultural aspects of physics and for inventing ways to celebrate physics through such varied vehicles as plays, musicals, exhibitions, street fairs, cabaret, posters, and operas.”

Past winners include Stephen Hawking, of Cambridge University; Freeman Dyson, of the Institute for Advanced Studies; Martin Aitken, of Oxford University; Alan Lightman, of  the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and Nobel Prize laureate Steven Weinberg, of the University of Texas.

The Gemant Award, named for the physicist Andrew Gemant (1895-1983), carries a $5,000 cash prize, an invitation to deliver a public lecture, and a $3,000 grant to an academic institution selected by the winner “to further the public communication of physics.”