Rice physics alum honored for public outreach, science communication

Particle physicist and Rice alumnus Don Lincoln ’90 is this year’s recipient of the American Institute of Physics’ top annual prize that recognizes significant contributions to the cultural, artistic or humanistic dimension of physics, the Andrew Gemant Award.

Don Lincoln

Lincoln is currently a senior scientist at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Chicago, where, in addition to conducting research, he hosts dozens of particle physics videos for Fermilab’s YouTube channel, the most popular of which has almost 3 million views.

The Gemant Award committee selected Lincoln for “over 20 years of enthusiastic and tireless communication of particle and cosmological physics to diverse audiences through public lectures, book, videos and articles, especially those aimed at physics educators.”

For more than a decade, Lincoln wrote weekly Fermilab Today columns and also has written countless articles appearing in magazines like Scientific American and The Physics Teacher and online publications, including the Huffington Post, CNN and the NOVA website’s blog. He has authored three books for the public about particle physics and the universe, developed a Theory of Everything course for the Great Courses series and given hundreds of lectures to a spectrum of audiences, including a TED talk.

Lincoln earned his master’s (1990) and Ph.D. (1994) in physics from Rice.