Professor of Physics Wins
First Place in Young Scholars Competition

By Debra Kain I December 12, 2005

Brian Keating

Brian Keating won first place and $20,000 in the Young Scholars Competition at the "Amazing Light: Visions for Discovery" symposium this month at the University of California, Berkeley.

The competition at the conference honoring Nobel laureate Charles Townes' 90th birthday was intended to recognize young scientists from around the world with the potential to make such major breakthroughs as Townes' discovery of the laser.

Keating was selected for his essay and talk on a telescope which he and his colleagues are constructing at the U.S. South Pole Station, Antarctica. Starting in December the telescope will search for primordial gravitational waves produced after the Big Bang and will test the theory of cosmological inflation.