Internationally acclaimed physicist named FSU Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor
An internationally renowned physicist with an esteemed track record of research, teaching and service has been named 糖心vlog鈥檚 2024-2025 Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor.
Harrison Prosper, a professor in the Department of Physics since 1993, has been recognized by FSU faculty members with the highest honor they can bestow upon one of their own. He is the fifth physics professor to receive the honor since the award鈥檚 inception in 1957.
Prosper, a high-energy experimental physicist with an extraordinary international reputation, was in Geneva, Switzerland, at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, when FSU President McCullough called last week to tell him he鈥檇 won the Lawton. CERN is one of the world鈥檚 largest and most respected centers for scientific research.
鈥淗arrison Prosper is an incredible researcher who has contributed to groundbreaking scientific discoveries on the international stage,鈥 said FSU President Richard McCullough. 鈥淗is commitment to research excellence profoundly enriches our students鈥 learning experiences. He epitomizes leadership in his field on a global scale.鈥
Prosper was delighted by the recognition.
鈥淭his recognition shows America at its very best, a land where opportunities still abound and where support by selfless individuals who insist on high standards can take a kid born in a shack on a tiny, impoverished island to where I am today,鈥 Prosper said.
Prosper, born on the Caribbean island of Dominica and educated in the United Kingdom, joined the university鈥檚 Physics department as an associate professor in August 1993 and was promoted to full professor five years later. From 2008-2018, Prosper led the department鈥檚 High Energy Physics group, helping to attract $10 million of federal funding to FSU. In 2009, he received the university鈥檚 Distinguished Research Professor award.
鈥淭his recognition shows America at its very best, a land where opportunities still abound and where support by selfless individuals who insist on high standards can take a kid born in a shack on a tiny, impoverished island to where I am today.鈥 鈥 Harrison Prosper, 2024-2025 Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor
Highly regarded in his field, Prosper was elected a fellow of the American Physical Society (2002) and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2014), and he won a High Energy and Particle Physics Prize from the European Physical Society in 2013.
鈥淭o get respect and recognition from your peers is one of the most difficult processes and one of the greatest accomplishments you could hope for as an academic,鈥 said Jim Clark, provost and executive vice president for Academic Affairs. 鈥淎s a physicist, Professor Prosper has earned the highest respect from his colleagues internally and externally to the university. He鈥檚 a great teacher, he cares deeply about his field and his profession, and he cares deeply about FSU.鈥
Mark Riley, dean of The Graduate School, winner of the 2014-2015 Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor award and Raymond K. Sheline Professor of Physics, wrote in his nomination letter that Prosper鈥檚 鈥渂rilliant scientific efforts have played a very major role in building the world-class reputation that the Physics department at FSU enjoys.鈥
High energy physics, or particle physics, is primarily the study of the discovery and characterization of the fundamental constituents of matter and their interactions. Prosper has actively participated in four major discoveries: the first direct evidence of the gluon, the top quark, electroweak production of single top quarks, and the Higgs boson.
In his nomination letter, Professor of Physics Todd Adams wrote that while each of the last three were discovered by large collaborations with hundreds or thousands of collaborators, Prosper was not just a member of the collaboration but a leader in the work on that discovery.
The discovery of the Higgs boson was of particular importance for Prosper.
Scientists Fran莽ois Englert and Peter W. Higgs independently proposed the existence of the Higgs boson, the particle that gives mass to electrons and other particles. But it was not proven until 2012, when Prosper and his colleagues at CERN discovered physical evidence of the particle.
鈥淚 don鈥檛 know of any other physicist of his generation (or younger) who has such a record of discovery,鈥 Adams wrote.
Kirby W. Kemper, Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor Emeritus, who helped hire Prosper in the early 1990s, wrote that Prosper fulfills the criteria for the Lawton award 鈥渕any times over.鈥 In 2006, Prosper became the Kirby W. Kemper Professor of Physics. The professorship was endowed by Kemper鈥檚 family in 2016.
Kemper applauded Prosper for his election in 2019 to a two-year term as chair of the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) Collaboration Board at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) located at CERN.
鈥淭his is an enormous recognition since CMS is a huge collaboration which includes over 4,000 scientists and engineers from over 50 countries,鈥 Kemper wrote.
As chair, he oversaw many aspects of the CMS experiment in a role that required around-the-clock management of different groups contributing to the project.
鈥淗is almost bi-weekly flights to Geneva, Switzerland, would have worn out any of us yet he carried off this effort with his usual diplomatic grace,鈥 Kemper wrote.
Prosper also served on the High Energy Physics Advisory Panel and on its periodic subpanel P5 (Particle Physics Project Prioritization Panel). Members are appointed to these panels by the leadership of the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation and advise on all aspects of high energy physics policy.
Prosper鈥檚 teaching and research are interwoven, whether he鈥檚 teaching high school students in the FSU Young Scholars Program, teaching undergraduates or directing them in their research, or mentoring graduate students and post-doctoral fellows.
鈥淲hat I enjoy the most is interacting with the young people because not only are they the future, but there鈥檚 always this feeling that you might actually change the life of someone and that makes it all worthwhile,鈥 Prosper said.
Adams lauded Prosper鈥檚 teaching: 鈥淗arrison is one of FSU鈥檚 best teachers because he deeply cares about students鈥 learning. 鈥 Every semester he and I have multiple conversations delving into how either of us can improve our classes, and I know I always come away with a new idea or two.鈥
At the university level, Prosper currently serves as a member of the Presidential and Rhodes Scholarship Committee, the University Promotion and Tenure Committee and the Distinguished Research Professor Committee, and he chairs the Research Computing Management Board.
He also received nomination letters from colleagues at Imperial College London, UCLA, University of Wisconsin-Madison, the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory and the Brookhaven National Lab.
The Lawton Distinguished Professor Award was first presented in 1957 as the Distinguished Professor Award. It was renamed in honor of the late Vice President for Academic Affairs Robert O. Lawton in 1981. Prosper will be honored at events throughout the year and will give an address at fall commencement.