Honors and awards  |  UW Notebook

August 4, 2025

Faculty/staff honors: Early career award, advances in theoretical physics, CAREER award

 

Recent recognition of the University of Washington includes an AIS Early Career award, the Tomassoni-Chisesi prize for contributions to theoretical physics and the National Science Foundation CAREER award.

Foster School’s Mingwen Yang receives AIS early career award

Mingwen Yang, UW assistant professor of Information Systems and Operations Management in the Foster School of Business, received the AIS Early Career Award from the Association for Information Systems.

AIS is a leading international organization dedicated to advancing the practice and study of information systems. Established in 2014, the award recognizes exceptional early-career scholars who have made outstanding contributions to research, teaching and service in the field of information systems, both locally and globally.

A 2024 recipient, Yang was honored for her impactful early work and dedication to advancing the discipline through scholarship and education.

“I am deeply honored and grateful to receive the Association for Information Systems (AIS) Early Career Award, a meaningful milestone in the early stage of my academic journey,” said Yang.

David Kaplan awarded Tomassoni-Chisesi Prize for advances in theoretical physics

David Kaplan, UW professor of physics, received the Tomassoni-Chisesi Prize for his contributions to theoretical physics. Awarded by Sapienza University of Rome, the prize — worth approximately $45,000 — was presented on March 18, 2025 by Giorgio Parisi, recipient of the 2021 Nobel Prize in Physics.

Kaplan was recognized for solving a long-standing problem in physics: how to accurately simulate “chiral” particles — those that exhibit handedness, meaning they behave differently when left- or right-handed — on a computer. His domain wall approach, which adds a fifth dimension to lattice simulations, has become a foundational tool in particle physics.

Reflecting on the personal significance of the recognition, Kaplan shared that the breakthrough has been decades in the making. “I first heard about the problem in 1981 when visiting Princeton,” he said. “Nobel laureate David Gross described it, and I didn’t really understand it then — but filed it away in my mind as something interesting.” That early spark led to a 1992 theory involving a five-dimensional model with two surfaces. It wasn’t until 2019, however, that he saw how a single-surface geometry — like a doughnut or sphere — could yield particles with the same interactions observed in nature, including the weak force. “The jury is still out … but I feel that I am on the right path now and it is very exciting.”  When asked of his plans for the prize money, Kaplan shared his plans to donate to the UW Department of Physics — “which made the work possible.”

For such an incredible breakthrough, we asked what keeps him motivated to keep exploring such big, complex questions in physics. Kaplan’s answer was simple: “I don’t need motivation to think about complex questions in physics,” he said. “I do it in the shower, as I walk to work, and in my sleep… I find it all obsessively interesting and fun.”

Marchand Receives $800K NSF CAREER award to advance synthetic DNA research

Jorge Marchand, UW assistant professor of chemical engineering, received a National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Award of more than $800,000 from the Division of Molecular and Cellular Biosciences, Systems and Synthetic Biology Program.

The NSF CAREER Award is the agency’s most prestigious honor for early-career faculty, recognizing those with the potential to become academic leaders in both research and education.

With this award, Marchand’s lab will develop sequencing technologies capable of precisely reading and interpreting semi-synthetic DNA alphabets — genetic systems that use more than the four natural DNA bases found in all known life. In other words, while natural DNA uses a four-letter code (A, T, C, G), Marchand’s group is exploring the implications of expanding that alphabet to six letters. Their research aims to understand what happens to biological systems when the genetic code is fundamentally altered.

“Life evolved to use a four-letter DNA alphabet,” Marchand said. “How much of biology breaks versus works when we change that alphabet to six letters is unknown. New technology is required to investigate these questions, which we will develop with this award.”

Marchand said he’s proud of the recognition for his lab’s “bold vision in engineering biology for compatibility with expanded genetic alphabets.”

Tag(s): David Kaplan • Department of Chemical Engineering • Department of Physics • Foster School of Business • Jorge Marchand • Mingwen Yang

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