URA Honorary Tollestrup Award for Postdoctoral Research

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Nominations for URA Honorary Tollestrup Award for Postdoctoral Research are Open

Awardee to be Announced at Annual Fermilab Users and Affiliates Meeting June 2025

Overview

The URA Honorary ​Tollestrup Award for Postdoctoral Research, named after celebrated Fermilab scientist Alvin Tollestrup, is one of the honorary awards conferred annually by the Universities Research Association (URA) for outstanding work conducted by young scientists during their postdoctoral years at Fermilab or in collaboration with Fermilab scientists.

The URA Honorary Tollestrup Award for Postdoctoral Research will be presented at the Annual Fermilab Users and Affiliates Meeting in June 2025. The awardee receives $10,000 from URA and presents their work at the Meeting.

Alvin Tollestrup, high-energy particle physicist and namesake of URA Tollestrup Award for Postdoctoral ResearchEligibility

​All Ph.D. researchers who are within six years of the receipt of their Ph.D., as of the nomination deadline, in non-tenure track positions (or non-tenure track equivalent positions at Fermilab). The work for which the award is made must be performed in conjunction with a Fermilab experiment or accelerator project, or under the auspices of the Fermilab Theory or Astrophysics Groups.

Nomination

  1. Self-nominations are welcome
  2. Candidate’s CV, including the list of publications and invited talks
  3. Research Statement, written by the nominee, describing the postdoctoral research work
  4. Two letters of support from scientists (other than the nominee) familiar with the work, which focus on the nominee’s contributions and how those demonstrate scientific insight and creativity. One of the letters should be from the nominator unless it is a self-nomination.

Nominations must be submitted to the chair of the Award Committee, Michael Mulhearn (ura-tollestrup@fnal.gov) by Friday, April 4, 2025. All nomination material should be sent in electronic form, .pdf preferably.

 

Call for Nominations

The Award Committee Chair, FNAL CRO, and URA will issue the call for nominations on February 3, 2025.

Notification of Award

By May 9, 2025 the committee chair will inform URA and the CRO of the selected awardee and will subsequently contact the award recipient, through an official letter of award notification. Such a letter includes a citation that speaks for the spirit of the award, including the rationale behind the awardee selection and work performed, the awardee’s full name, institution, email address, and phone number.

Award for Postdoctoral Research Committee

The URA Honorary Tollestrup Award for Postdoctoral Research Award Committee members reflects a sufficiently diverse representation of disciplines and expertise to ensure eligible nominees’ appropriate and fair consideration.  The members and chair of the award committee are appointed by the Fermilab Director/CRO.

Tollestrup Award Committee

NameRoleOrganization
Michael MulhearnChairUC Davis
Jahred AdelmanMemberNorthern Illinois University
Julie WhitmoreMemberFermilab
Andreas KronfeldMemberFermilab
Matthew ToupsMemberFermilab