INT Fact Sheet

1. Mission
2. INT scientific staff
3. Integration of the INT into the University of Washington
4. INT administrative staff
5. INT budget history
6. Cost of programs and workshops
7. Research impact of INT programs
8. The INT’s post-doc and 5-year Fellows program
9. INT graduate students
10. The INT’s program and workshop schedule

 

Mission

The INT was founded in 1990, and has as its mission statement:

• To create a research environment where visiting scientists can focus their energies on key frontier areas of the field, including those crucial to the success of existing and future experimental facilities.
• To encourage interdisciplinary research at the intersections of nuclear physics with related disciplines, such as particle physics, astrophysics, atomic physics, and condensed matter physics. The goals are to build greater appreciation, in the general physics community, for the tools of nuclear physics and the breadth of their possible applications, and to assure that new ideas generated in other fields are quickly assimilated and exploited by nuclear physics.
• To recruit and nurture the best young researchers, thereby enhancing their professional prospects. The goal is to ensure a highly trained and talented pool of nuclear scientists to meet the nation's needs.
• To contribute to scientific education through graduate student research, INT summer schools, and co-sponsorship of national schools and workshops.
• To strengthen international cooperation in nuclear physics and physics generally, through cooperative programs and exchanges.
• We view the running of visitor programs to be the core of the INT, all INT programs being community driven and prioritized by the NAC. INT program and workshop attendance has reached a steady state, with the INT hosting roughly 400 scientific visitors per year.

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INT Scientific Staff

Director:

• Sanjay Reddy started term as Director on 9/16/2022

Senior Fellows:

• Vincenzo Cirigliano, Senior Fellow
• David Kaplan, Senior Fellow
• Martin Savage, Senior Fellow (on leave)

Senior Fellow Emeritus:

• George Bertsch
• Larry McLerran
• Wick Haxton

5-yr Fellows:

• Wouter Dekens, Fundamental Symmetries, Effective Field Theory
• Farid Salazar, High Energy QCD, and EIC Physics

Postdoctoral Scholars:

• Ayala Glick-Magid – Nuclear Theory for Physics Beyond the Standard Model; unsupported
• Kelsey Lund – Nuclear Astrophysics; unsupported
• Sebastían Urrutia-Quiroga – Fundamental Symmetries and Effective Field Theories
• Yukari Yamauchi – Strongly Coupled Field Theories, Lattice QCD

Long-term visitors: 

• Rebecca Surman from January – May 2024
• Marlene Nahrgang and Marcus Bluhm from May – August 2024
• Michal Praszalowicz from July – August 2024

Graduate Students:

• Mark D'Souza (Advisor: Vincenzo Cirigliano); unsupported
• Maria Dawid (Advisor: Vincenzo Cirigliano) 
• Cullen Gantenberg (Advisor: David Kaplan); unsupported
• Mia Kumamoto (Advisor: Sanjay Reddy) 
• John Stroud (Advisor: Sanjay Reddy)

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Integration of the INT into the University of Washington

INT scientific staff have academic appointments in the Department of Physics: the Director and Senior Fellows are tenured Professors, the 5-year Fellows are Research Assistant Professors (not tenure track), and the post-docs are Research Associates. The Director coordinates with the Physics Chair and Arts and Sciences Dean on academic concerns of the INT, and with the Vice Provost for Research for research-related issues.

 

INT Administrative Staff

• Megan Baunsgard, Program Operations Specialist
• Kimberlee Choe, Administrator
• Paris Nguyen, Program Operations Specialist
• IT support (0.4 FTE) shared with Physics and Astronomy

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INT Budget History

The INT is funded annually from June 1 of each year; the grant is normally on a 5-year cycle, with the current budget being Year 1 of the 5-year grant running from June 1, 2024 to May 31, 2029. Historically from 2000-2024, the INT had been on a growth trajectory for annual funding increases of 2-3% each year.

 

Cost of Programs and Workshops

The INT support visitors’ local expenses, which is roughly ~80% of lodging costs (which varies based on season and lodging selected) and $30 meal per diem. Travel expenses are not provided unless there is an exception approved by the event organizers and INT Director. We can host up to 20 participants (limited by desk space) per week during INT programs and 45 participants at INT workshops (limited by the seating capability of our meeting room). Our goal is to ensure a 16-person average attendance during programs and a 40-person average attendance for workshops.

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Research Impact of INT Programs and Workshops

It is hard to fully assess the long-term impact of research activity at the INT until years later, but here is a sample of accomplishments that can be traced back to the INT:

• Generalized Parton Distributions (GDPs) were invented at the 1996 INT program "Quark and Gluon Structure of Nucleons and Nuclei"; X. Ji's (Maryland) two papers have now accrued over 1700 citations.
• INT post-doc Chris Jarzynski (post-doc 1994-1996) developed his theory of microscopic work leading to his being awarded the Sackler prize in 2008 for his "ground breaking developments in statistical mechanics".
• The first modeling of neutrino-nucleus inelastic interactions important to core-collapse supernovae was done at the INT, leading to the recognition of a new mechanism for supernova nucleosynthesis, the neutrino process.
• The development of effective field theory for nuclear physics occurred at two INT workshops held in 1998 and 1999. The seminal papers from these meetings have been very influential in low-energy few-body physics, developing more realistic nucleon potentials and extracting useful data from lattice simulations.
• Much of the early phenomenology of the Colored Glass Condensate (CGC) for RHIC collisions was developed at the INT, including the prediction of particle suppression at forward rapidity, which was subsequently verified experimentally and remains the strongest evidence for CGC.
• The current focus of the nuclear structure community on mean field theory and the energy density functional can be traced back to programs at the INT ("Nuclear Structure near the Limits of Stability, Fall 2005") and the leadership of Senior Fellow Bertsch.
• The AdS/CFT correspondence has been used to compute jet quenching and other features of quark-gluon plasmas. This effort was spearheaded by participants of the 2003 INT program "QCD and String Theory.” Son's viscosity bound has proved to be a key development in the hydrodynamic theory of heavy ion collisions, and the role of viscosity now dominates the research of the hydro community today.
• INT post-doc Shina Tan (post-doc 2006-2008) developed his theory of universal properties of many-body wave functions (the so-called "Tan Relations") leading to his receiving the 2010 APS George E Valley Prize, given biennially to the one physicist within five years of PhD deemed to have made the most significant contribution to physics.
• The 2010 program on EIC physics led to the publication of a thick volume, underwritten by the INT, outlining the possible scientific program for such a facility.
• The 2017 program on “Electromagnetic Signatures of R-process Nucleosynthesis in Neutron Star Mergers” and the 2014 program “Binary Neutron Star Coalescence as a Fundamental Physics Laboratory” played a key role in presciently bringing together the nuclear physics, astrophysics, and gravitational wave communities before GW170817- the first multi-messenger observation of a neutron star merger.
• The program “Probing Nucleons and Nuclei in High Energy Collisions,” which was held at the Institute for Nuclear Theory, Seattle, WA, USA, from October 1 until November 16, 2018, resulted in the publication of a 332-page collection of proceedings. These proceedings are important for the experimental program at CERN and at BNL, 2002.12333 [hep-ph].
• The INT program on “Nuclear Structure at the Crossroads” held in 2019 brought together experts in nuclear interactions and nuclear many-body techniques that have been advancing nuclear structure calculations up to mass numbers A≃100 to address open issues. This field is at a critical point in its development, and this program played an important role in identifying priorities and led to a white paper, 2107.00413 [hep-ph].
• The 2019 INT workshop “Hadronic contributions to (g−2)μ ”, featuring 61 participants, brought together the Muon g−2 Theory Initiative and led to a community consensus for the entire Standard-Model prediction. This has led to the white paper “The anomalous magnetic moment of the muon in the Standard Model” 2006.04822 [hep-ph]. It has been widely used as a theory benchmark, including in the publications by the Fermilab experiment 2104.03281, 2308.06230, and has garnered more than 1000 citations.
• The 2020 INT workshop on “Origin of the Visible Universe: Unraveling the Proton Mass” addressed how the mass of the proton emerges from the strong interaction dynamics. The goal of the workshop was to identify key measurements to access and disentangle the individual contributions to the proton mass. Highlights from recent measurements at JLab of the gluonic trace anomaly were presented for the first time, and perspectives for future measurements at EIC were discussed.
• The INT workshop on “Machine Learning for Nuclear Theory” held in 2022 brought together researchers driving the development of machine learning and artificial intelligence for problems in nuclear theory and related areas. Applications discussed ranged from lattice QCD and statistical systems, hadron and nuclear structure, many-body theory, quantum computing, and nuclear astrophysics. Discussions initiated new collaborations and the exchange of techniques across different subfields.
• The 2022 INT workshop on “Dense Nuclear Matter Equation of State from Heavy-Ion Collisions” brought together and strengthened ties between subfields of nuclear physics interested in the Equation of State (EOS). As a result of the workshop, a white paper 2301.13253 has been written that highlights the role that heavy-ion collision experiments and simulations used to describe them can play, along with microscopic calculations and astrophysical observations, in constraining the EOS.
   

In the shorter term, we ask visitors to obtain preprint numbers for work accomplished at the INT, and you can view a list here.

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The INT's Post-Doc and 5-Year Fellow Program

A major goal of the INT is to mentor young scientists and help them attain tenure track or permanent research scientist positions after leaving the INT. Since its inception, the INT has historically supported five junior researchers at any given time: two Fellows and three postdoctoral research associates. In recent years due to fluctuations in DOE funding and receipt of funding from other sources, the number of postdoctoral fellows associated with the INT has varied in step with the available funds. Our DOE grant currently supports 6.5 postdoctoral fellows and one 5-yr Fellow that holds the rank of Research Assistant Professor in the Physics Department. In the fall, we will support 4 postdocs and two 5-yr Fellows.

The best metric for the INT’s success at mentoring young scientists is the number of former INT post-docs and Fellows now in permanent or tenure-track positions. Since the inception of the INT, 50 of the INT’s junior researchers have already found such positions.

Silas Beane	Professor, University of Washington
Paulo Bedaque	Professor, University of Maryland
Michael Bender	Director, Centre d'Etudes Nucleaires de Bordeaux Gradignan
Scott Bogner	Professor, Michigan State University
David Brown	Staff Scientist, LLNL
Michael Buchoff	Staff Scientist, LLNL
Matthias Burkardt	Professor, New Mexico State University
Aleksey Cherman	Assistant Professor, University of Minnesota
Huaiyu “Mike” Duan	Associate Professor, University of New Mexico
Michael Forbes	Assistant Professor, Washington State University
Doron Gazit	Associate Professor, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Kouichi Hagino	Professor, Kyoto University
Hans-Werner Hammer	Professor, Technical University of Darmstadt
Tetsuo Hatsuda	Professor, University of Tokyo
Kai Hencken	Privatdozent, University of Basel
Martin Hoferichter	Assistant Professor, University of Bern
Jamal Jalilian-Marian	Professor, Baruch College
Chris Jarzynski	Professor, University of Maryland
Lev Kaplan	Professor, Tulane University
Christopher Lee	Staff Scientist, LANL
Chi-Jen David Lin	Professor, National Chiao-Tung U., Taiwan
Cecilia Lunardini	Professor, Arizona State University
Mingxing Luo	Professor, Zhejiang University, China
Gail McLaughlin	Professor, North Carolina State University
Yacine Mehtar-Tani	Senior Scientist, BNL
Christopher Monahan	Assistant Professor, William and Mary
Rajamani Narayanan	Professor, Florida International University
Yusuke Nishida	Associate Professor, Tokyo Institute of Technology
Andreas Nogga	Staff Scientist, IKP Jülich
Kenneth Nollett	Assistant Professor, San Diego State University
Thomas Papenbrock	Professor, University of Tennessee
Assumpta Parreño	Professor, Barcelona University
Kelly Patton	Assistant Professor, Colby College
Lucas Platter	Associate Professor, University of Tennessee
Steve Pollock	Professor, University of Colorado
Yong-Zhong Qian	Professor, University of Minnesota
Michael Ramsey-Musolf	Professor, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Sanjay Reddy	INT Senior Fellow and Professor, University of Washington
Alessandro Roggero	Assistant Professor, University of Trento
Paul Romatschke	Associate Professor, University of Colorado, Boulder
Gautam Rupak	Professor, Mississippi State University
Thomas Schaefer	Professor, North Carolina State University
Srimoyee Sen	Assistant Professor, Iowa State University
Andrei Starinets	Professor, Oxford University
Andrew Steiner	Associate Professor, University of Tennessee
Iain Stewart	Professor, MIT
Shina Tan	Professor, Peking University
Kirill Tuchin	Professor, Iowa State University
Raju Venugopalan	Distinguished Scientist, BNL
Volodymyr Vovchenko	Assistant Professor, University of Houston
Matthew Wingate	Lecturer and Fitzwilliam Fellow, Cambridge University
Naoki Yamamoto	Professor, Keio University

 

Aside from positions at universities and labs that traditionally have maintained nuclear theory groups, this list includes institutions without a strong history of nuclear theory, such as the University of Colorado.

Among these former INT post-docs there are:

• 18 APS Fellows (Beane, Bedaque, Burkardt, Hammer, Jalilian-Marian, Jarzynski, Lunardini, McLaughlin, Narayanan, Qian, Ramsey-Musolf, Papenbrock, Reddy, Schaefer, Steiner, Stewart, Tan, Venugopalan);
• 5 OJI award recipients (McLaughlin, Papenbrock, Qian, Schaefer, and Stewart);
• 1 NSF National Young Investigator (Ramsey-Musolf);
• 3 NSF Career Award winners (Beane, McLaughlin, Tan);
• 3 Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellows (Romatschke, Stewart, Tan)
• 1 Sackler prize winner (Jarzynski);
• 1 APS prize winner -- 2010 George E Valley Prize (Tan);
• One winner of the Belgian Prix Adolphe Weterms (Bender);
• 1 National Academy of Sciences member (Jarzynski);
• 1 American Academy of Arts and Sciences member (Jarzynski);
• 1 Humboldt Research Award recipient (Venugopalan);
• 1 Simons Investigator (Stewart);
• 3 DOE Early Career Award recipients (Duan, Lee, Romatschke);
• 1 IUPAP Young Investigator Prize Awardee (Vovchenko) 

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The INT Graduate Students

The INT provides a vibrant environment for graduate students, exposing them to a broad spectrum of physics through the visitor programs. By the end of fall 2021, the INT will have graduated 32 Ph.D. students, including six who currently have tenure and 5 in tenure track positions. The current jobs of the 27 former students graduating since 2003 are shown in this pie chart below, among whom there have been six women.

Among these former INT graduate students, there are:

• 1 Maxwell Medal and Prize winner (Starinets);
• 2 Pappalardo Fellowship winners (Nishida, Wagman);
• 2 Wilson Prize winners (Briceno, Davoudi);
• 1 NSF Career Award recipient (Zurek);
• 1 DOE OJI Award recipient (Schmaltz);
• 1 DOE Early Career Award (Davoudi);
• 1 Alfred P. Sloan Fellow (Schmaltz).

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The INT's Program and Workshop Schedule

• Upcoming programs and workshops
• Past programs and workshops

 

Last revised on October 15, 2024