The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is among six universities selected to receive generous funding from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation: the Institute for Condensed Matter Theory (ICMT) at Illinois will receive a five-year grant through the foundation’s new Emergent Phenomena in Quantum Systems (EPiQS) initiative, to establish a Gordon and Betty Moore Postdoctoral Scholars program. The program will fund several postdoctoral scientists who show exceptional promise to pursue discovery-driven research topics of their own choosing in collaboration with ICMT members and experimentalists in condensed matter physics.
The ICMT was established in 2007 to cultivate and sustain an open, collective research model that fosters and accelerates innovation and discovery in condensed matter physics. The areas of expertise of ICMT members cover the entire spectrum of condensed matter physics: the diverse training and approaches of faculty coalesce to generate novel ideas and fresh approaches to the most pressing and intriguing problems at the frontier of condensed matter.
The area of emergent phenomena in complex quantum matter is one of the main directions of research at ICMT. Members are engaged in a broad program of research that includes high temperature superconductivity, topological phases of matter, quantum Monte Carlo simulations of strongly correlated systems and quantum materials, quantum entanglement and quantum information, and non-equilibrium dynamics in quantum condensed matter.
Through this grant, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation aims to increase scientific productivity and to enrich the overall intellectual environment at ICMT, while enabling some of the top young talent in theory to acquire a breadth of expertise through flexible postdoctoral appointments in which they can pursue their interests and work with multiple faculty members.
The grant will support appointments of fellows for up to three years. The first call for applications for the 2015/16 academic year will go out in August 2014, and decision letters will be delivered in November 2014.
Other universities receiving inaugural EPiQS funding for theoretical condensed matter centers include Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University, University of California at Berkeley, and University of California at Santa Barbara. The scope of the EPiQS initiative will also extend to leading efforts in experimental condensed matter physics, by providing financial support for experimental investigator awards, materials synthesis, laboratory instrumentation acquisition and development, high-risk projects with the potential for new discoveries, and community-building activities that promote the exchange of ideas and materials.
For more information about the Moore Foundation’s EPiQS initiative, please visit their web site at http://www.moore.org/programs/science/emergent-phenomena-in-quantum-systems.
The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation’s mission is to support bold ideas that create enduring impact in the areas of science, environmental conservation and patient care. Intel co-founder Gordon and his wife Betty established the Foundation to create positive change around the world and at home in the San Francisco Bay Area. A guiding principal for the foundation is investment in early-stage research, emerging fields, and top research scientists that support opportunities to transform—or even create—entire fields. The Foundation’s environmental conservation efforts promote sustainability, protect critical ecological systems, and align conservation needs with human development. Its patient care focus is working to eliminate preventable harms and unnecessary healthcare costs through meaningful engagement of patients and their families in a supportive, redesigned healthcare system.