Nominations are invited for the Early Career Scientist Prize (previously Young Scientist Prize) in Atomic, Molecular and Optical (AMO) Physics, which will be awarded in 2026 by the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics through Commission C15 (AMO Physics). This prestigious prize recognizes outstanding early-career contributions to the field of AMO Physics.
The award will be presented during the 29th International Conference on Atomic Physics (ICAP2026), to be held from June 14th to 19th , 2026 in Wuhan, China. The Prize includes a formal certificate, a medal, a monetary award of EUR 1,000, and an invited presentation by the recipient at ICAP 2026, providing an opportunity to showcase their work to the international AMO Physics community.
Nominees for the 2026 award are expected to have made original and outstanding contributions to the field of AMO Physics and its community. If the work was performed in collaboration, the leading personal contribution of the nominee must be clearly identified. To qualify as an “Early Career Scientist”, a nominee should have had, by 1 January 2026, no more than 8 years research following the PhD. For this call, this means the PhD should have been granted in 2018 or later, unless the nominee has experienced career interruptions. Any career interruptions should be briefly described and will be considered when deciding whether a person qualifies as an early career scientist or not.
We strongly encourage you to consider a broad and diverse range of outstanding colleagues and collaborators when identifying candidates. In recent years, the pool of candidates for the Prize has not fully reflected the diversity of the international Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics community, particularly with respect to gender, representation of underrepresented groups, and geographical distributions.
Nominations for the Early Career Scientist Prizes must be submitted by a senior member of the research community. Self-nominations are not accepted. Nominations should include:
- A cover letter by the nominator evaluating the nominee’s contributions to AMO and
identifying the specific achievements and work (up to 4 publications) for which the nominee
is to be recognized. - A statement declaring that, to the best of the nominator’s knowledge, the nominee meets
the commonly held standards of professional ethics and scientific integrity. - A Curriculum Vitae of the nominee including all publications.
Nominations made in previous years will be considered if the nominee is still an early career
scientist: we therefore encourage nominators to provide an updated Curriculum Vitae of their
nominee to help with the selection process.
The deadline for submission of nominations is 31st March 2026.
Nominations should be sent to: jwahn@kaist.ac.kr
Marta I. Hernández (Instituto de Fisica Fundamental, Spain), Secretary of IUPAP C15
Dag Hanstorp (University of Gothenburg, Sweden), Vise Chiar of IUPAP C15
Jaewook AHN (KAIST, Korea), Chair of IUPAP C15
GEFAM 