Nicholas P. Samios

Nicholas P. Samios (born March 15, 1932, in NYC) is an American physicist and former director of the Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, New York.{{cite web |url=https://history.aip.org/phn/11609002.html |title=Nicholas P. Samios. Biography |work=Physics History Network |editor=AIP |access-date=2018-10-17}}

Biography

He majored in physics at Columbia College of Columbia University, from which he graduated in 1953; he earned his PhD at Columbia in 1957. He worked on the Columbia faculty for three years before joining Brookhaven's physics department, where he was appointed laboratory director in May 1982.{{cite book|author1=Neutrino Facilities Assessment Committee|author2=Board on Physics and Astronomy|author3=Division on Engineering and Physical Sciences|title=Neutrinos and Beyond: New Windows on Nature|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qsObAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA76|date=13 May 2003|publisher=National Academies Press|isbn=978-0-309-08716-2|page=76}} A major achievement of his tenure was the construction of the RHIC, the first heavy-ion collider.{{cite web |url= https://www.bnl.gov/newsroom/news.php?a=25191 |title= Brookhaven Lab Names Former Director Nicholas Samios Senior Scientist Emeritus |last= Gettler | first= Joe |website= Brooklyn National Laboratory |date= 17 October 2014 |access-date= 20 July 2020}} He stepped down as director in 1997 after a dispute on leaked radioactivity in the laboratory, but continued to work as a researcher.{{cite web |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1997/03/08/nyregion/lab-director-in-dispute-steps-down.html |title=Lab Director In Dispute Steps Down |author=John T. McQuiston |work=The New York Times |date=1997-03-08 |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20150527052718/https://www.nytimes.com/1997/03/08/nyregion/lab-director-in-dispute-steps-down.html |archivedate=2015-05-27}} In 2003 he became director of the RIKEN BNL Research Center.

Scientific achievements

Samios has specialized in the physics of high-energy particles. He is especially known for his study of elementary particles, in particular for the discovery of the Omega minus particle in 1964 as postulated by Murray Gell-Mann and Yuval Ne'eman, as well as the first charmed baryon. These discoveries have contributed to the understanding of the spectrum of particles and have carried to the formulation of Quantum Chromodynamics and the Standard Model of particle physics.{{cite journal |url= https://cds.cern.ch/record/1733362 |date= July–August 2002 |author= |title= People |journal= CERN Courier |volume= 42 |issue= 6 |pages= 34 |access-date= 20 July 2020}}

Awards

1980 Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award{{cite web |url= https://science.osti.gov/lawrence/Award-Laureates/1980s/samios |title= Nicholas P. Samios, 1980 |website= The Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award |date= 28 December 2010 |publisher= U.S. DOE Office of Science (SC) |access-date= 20 July 2020}}
1982 Member of the National Academy of Sciences
1993 Panofsky Prize{{cite web |url= https://www.bnl.gov/newsroom/news.php?a=110971 |title= Physicist Nicholas Samios Awarded Gian Carlo Wick Gold Medal |last1= McNulty Walsh | first1= Karen |last2= Genzer | first2= Peter |website= Brooklyn National Laboratory |date= 4 June 2009 |access-date= 20 July 2020}}
2009 Gian Carlo Wick Gold Medal

Nicholas P. Samios

Biography

Scientific achievements

Awards

References

Further reading