The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) has awarded Jean-Luc Vay, head of the Advanced Modeling Program (AMP) in the Accelerator Technology & Applied Physics Division at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), the 2025 IEEE Nuclear and Plasma Sciences Society’s Particle Accelerator Science and Technology (PAST) Award. The award ceremony will take place at the 2025 North American Particle Accelerator Conference, scheduled for August 10-15, 2025, in Sacramento, California.

“I am very grateful and honored to receive this award, which also reflects the support that I have received from Berkeley Lab since I joined as a postdoc in 1996, from the division that hosted me—known as the Accelerator & Fusion Research Division at the time and now ATAP—and from the US Department of Energy,” says Vay, who has been a senior member of the IEEE since 2014.

The award, he adds, “also reflects the teamwork within AMP and between AMP and our collaborators, which was essential in achieving the recognition of contributions to the fields of beam physics and particle accelerator science and technology.”

The IEEE is one of the leading scientific and technical societies. Within the IEEE, the Nuclear and Plasma Sciences Society oversees several committees, including PAST, which focuses on the science and engineering of particle accelerators. One of the most significant contributions of the IEEE and PAST to particle accelerator science and applications is the creation and sponsorship of the Particle Accelerator Conference, first held in 1965 under the auspices of the IEEE. Since 2010, PAST has co-sponsored, in collaboration with the American Physical Society’s Division of Physics of Beams, the International Particle Accelerator Conference and the North American Particle Accelerator Conference series.

Vay notes that the award also acknowledges the increasing importance of computation in the field. “While using computers is nothing new to particle beam and accelerator physics, where they have been used to compute particle trajectories and other effects for decades, the field is entering a new era.”

This new era features cutting-edge computer chips based on advanced central processing units, graphics processing units, field-programmable gate arrays, and various other architectures. These chips can compute particle trajectories more quickly and combine multiple physics effects with increasing complexity and realism, bringing fast computing close to the machine’s edge for rapid and precise feedback and control. They can also harness the emerging power of artificial intelligence and machine learning, driving future innovations in the design and control of particle accelerators.

According to Vay, the award could also bolster efforts by the computational beam and accelerator physics community to develop innovative, integrated ecosystems for advanced simulation tools that fully capitalize on the new computing hardware and techniques.

“These new tools will enable the community to deliver the next generation of particle accelerators that are more powerful, yet smaller, cheaper, and more efficient, extending the reach of particle accelerators and beams.”

For more information on ATAP News articles, contact caw@lbl.gov.