Eligibility

All Ph.D. researchers at either Fermilab or URA member institution who are within 6 years of their initial appointment to a tenure track position (or a Fermilab tenure track equivalent*) as of the nomination deadline. Career breaks and time spent on family or medical leave will not be counted as part of the six-year period. The work for which the award is made must directly benefit a Fermilab experiment or accelerator project or be performed in conjunction with Fermilab staff. The work may be experimental, theoretical, or a contribution to instrumentation, computing, or accelerator technologies.

*At Fermilab, ‘tenure track equivalent’ positions are Associate Scientist and the Wilson and Peoples Fellowships.

Nomination Materials

1) Name and title of nominator. Candidates may nominate themselves for the Award. If not self-nominating, the nominator should provide one of the letters of support.

2) Nominee’s CV, including invited talks. The CV must also show the initial tenure track position and year of appointment if different from the current position. If career breaks have been taken, please explicitly state the time periods. Please do not submit personally identifiable information such as birthdate or social security number.

3) List of publications.

4) List of outreach, mentoring, and community engagement activities.

5) Up to three, minimum two, letters of support from scientists or faculty familiar with the work.

Letters should provide sufficient background such that the significance of the candidate’s work can be understood by all members of the committee, including those who are not experts in the subfield of the candidate. The reference letters are submitted online by the reference writers at the submission site below. The reference writers submit the letters online at the submission site below. Candidates must include all references on their standard coversheet and instruct the system to email the letter request notifications to their references. The reference writer cannot log in or submit the letter without such email notification.

6) Candidate’s statement describing research work and demonstrating scientific insight and creativity, 5 pages max.

7) Statement, by either the nominator or the candidate, 250 words max, highlighting the candidate’s work benefits to the laboratory.

For questions, please contact the Early Career Award Committee chair, Cecilia Gerber​, at  uraearlycareer@fnal.gov.

Nominations must be submitted to https://academicjobsonline.org/ajo/jobs/29690 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.

Early Career Award Committee

The URA Honorary Early Career Award Committee members reflect 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.