More good news from our faculty! Esteemed Columbia physics professor and co-director of the Center for Computational Quantum Physics at the Flatiron Institute, Andrew Millis, has been awarded the 2026 John Bardeen Prize. The eponymous prize honors two-time Nobel Prize winner in physics, John Bardeen, and is sponsored by the Friends of Bardeen and the Physics Department at the University of Illinois, where Bardeen spent the bulk of his career. Professor Millis, who (fortunately for us!) has spent the bulk of his career with CU physics, is the first Columbia faculty member to win this prestigious award, which is only granted every three years.
The John Bardeen Prize was established in 1991 by the organizers of the International Conference on the Materials and Mechanisms of Superconductivity (M2S). In honoring Professor Millis, the 2026 selection committee noted his "pioneering theoretical work that fundamentally shaped the interpretation of optical experiments in unconventional superconductors and for groundbreaking contributions to the elucidation of pairing mechanisms in a wide range of materials and models, including their connection to quantum criticality." Professor Millis's research focuses on theoretical physics as it pertains to the behavior of interacting electrons in solids.
He is one of three pioneering theoretical physicists honored with the prize this year. The other two winners are Dung-hai Lee from the University of California, Berkeley, and Michael Norman from Argonne National Laboratory. The prize comes with a $6,000 USD award for each recipient and will be formally presented this July at the M2S Conference in Stuttgart, Germany.
Bravo, Andy!
